Date: 2015-11-17
Type of information: Termination of an agreement
Compound: ADAM8 inhibitor drugs including BK-1361
Company: Cancer Research Technology (CRT) Medivir (Sweden)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: licensing collaboration
Action mechanism: enzyme inhibitor/ADAM8 inhibitor. ADAM8, a metalloprotease disintegrin, is a new drug target in pancreatic cancer. High expression levels of ADAM8 are correlated with poor clinical outcome. Blocking ADAM8 in mice with pancreatic cancer prevented the spread of the disease, shrunk tumours and significantly extended lifespan. This is thought to be due to its involvement in cell adhesion, cell migration, inflammation and the growth of blood vessels. For biological function, ADAM8 requires multimerization and associates with ?1 integrin on the cell surface. A peptidomimetic ADAM8 inhibitor, BK-136, has been designed by structural modelling of the disintegrin domain. In pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, BK-1361 affects ADAM8 function leading to reduced invasiveness. In mice, BK-1361 decreased tumour burden and metastasis of implanted pancreatic tumour cells. High levels of ADAM8 have also been linked with more aggressive tumours including those in breast, brain, prostate, lung, head and neck, and kidney cancers.
Disease: pancreatic cancer
Details: * On April 13, 2015, Medivir and Cancer Research Technology (CRT), Cancer Research UK’s commercialization and development arm, announced a partnership to develop a new class of drugs that has shown promise for treating a range of different cancers, including pancreatic cancer. As part of the collaboration, CRT and Medivir will conduct a two-year research programme to optimize and develop small molecules targeting the cell surface protein ADAM8, which has been linked to tumour survival, cell invasion and metastasis. This research will be led by Professor Jörg Bartsch as head of the TransMIT-Project Division for Research in Neuro-Oncology at TransMIT GmbH, located at Marburg University in Germany, in collaboration with Medivir. Prof. Bartsch previously worked at King’s College London where the initial patent application was filed by King’s College IP and Licensing team. Further proof of concept studies were funded by Cancer Research UK at King’s College.
Under the terms of the agreement Medivir receives an exclusive, global license to research, develop, manufacture and commercialize ADAM8 inhibitor drugs resulting from development. CRT receives an upfront payment and future success milestones as well as royalties on sales which are shared with the academic collaborators.
Financial terms:
Latest news: * On November 17,2015, Medivir announced that it will terminate its ADAM8 inhibitor project for pancreatic cancer. The closure of the project follows a semi-annual review of the company’s R&D project portfolio, which deprioritized the project based on data generated during the last six months. As a consequence the license agreement with Cancer Research Technology (CRT) for ADAM8 inhibitors and the collaboration with CRT and TransMIT GmbH will be terminated. With the closure of this project, internal resources are transferred to the company’s other oncology discovery projects. These projects are focused on the identification of new treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma, pancreatic cancer and other areas of high unmet medical need among cancer patients, and utilize Medivir’s core technologies of protease inhibitor design and nucleoside/nucleotide science.
