Astellas bets on Vir cancer drug, and other licensing deals

Our latest round-up of pharma licensing deals features assets from Vir Biotech, Harbour BioMed, Unnatural Products, Genhouse, and CSL.

Astellas taps Vir for prostate cancer TCE

While Vir Biotech is best known for its work on infectious diseases, its developing cancer pipeline has delivered a partnership with Astellas that could be worth around $1.4 billion.

The strategic collaboration comes with $335 million in upfront and near-term payments, including an equity investment, to San Francisco-based Vir from the Japanese pharma group. It is focused on VIR-5500, a PSMA-targeted T-cell engager (TCE) currently in phase 1 testing for prostate cancer.

There is another $1.37 billion in development, regulatory and sales milestones on offer, plus royalties on ex-US sales. Vir has retained the right to co-promote VIR-5500 in the US if it reaches the market. Meanwhile, Sanofi – from which Vir licensed the TCE – will also get a portion of the proceeds.

VIR-5500 combines a bispecific PSMA and CD3 binding TCE with a masking technology designed to keep the TCE active sites inactive until they reach the tumour microenvironment, in an attempt to reduce off-target effects that could cause toxicity. The phase 1 trial is testing the TCE's safety and ability to reduce the prostate cancer biomarker PSA.

Solstice sets off with CTLA4 drug from Harbour

Newly-formed biotech Solstice Oncology has started its drug development journey by taking ex-Greater China rights to porustobart (HBM4003), an anti-CTLA-4 antibody, in return for $105 million in cash, equity, and near-term payments.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Solstice – which hasn't revealed its plans for porustobart – is also on the hook for up to $1.1 billion in future development, regulatory, and commercial achievement-based payments. In China, Shanghai-based Harbour is running mid-stage trials of porustobart in a range of oncology indications, including melanoma, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, and neuroendocrine tumours.

CTLA4 is an immune checkpoint already targeted by drugs such as Bristol Myers Squibb's Yervoy (ipilimumab) and AstraZeneca's Imjudo (tremelimumab), which are used in several cancers in combination with PD-(L)1 inhibitors, but are notoriously hard to tolerate. A new generation of candidates, such as BioNTech/OncoC4's gotistobart in phase 3 for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), are being developed to try to offer efficacy with reduced toxicity.

Novartis forms Unnatural partnership for cardiovascular drugs

Unnatural Products' development platform for orally-delivered macrocyclic peptide drugs has caught the attention of Novartis, which wants to explore its potential to find new therapies for cardiovascular diseases.

The Swiss pharma group has agreed to provide around $100 million in upfront payments and milestone payments for discovery stage work at Santa Cruz, California-based UNP, and will take over promising projects once they reach the investigational new drug (IND) stage just before clinical testing. The deal also includes up to $1.7 billion in development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments.

The specific indications or disease targets covered by the agreement have not been disclosed, but UNP has said its platform lends itself to developing compounds active against targets historically considered 'undruggable'. It has previously signed partnerships with MSD and argenx. Novartis said the alliance will allow it to "engage targets at a dose and with a pharmacological versatility not possible with many other approaches."

Gilead signs synthetic lethality deal with Genhouse

Gilead Sciences has bolted on another programme in the area of synthetic lethality – drugs that induce tumour cell death whilst sparing normal cells – via an agreement with China's Genhouse Bio.

The US drugmaker is paying $80 million for global rights to Genhouse's MAT2A-targetting synthetic lethal therapy, codenamed GH31, which already has regulatory approval to start clinical testing in China and the US. Genhouse is also in line for up to $1.45 billion in milestone payments, as well as royalties on any future sales.

In December, Gilead paid up to $30 million for rights to another synthetic lethality programme, Repare Therapeutics' Polθ ATPase inhibitor RP-346, which has potential as a breast cancer treatment. This week, the company also agreed to buy its cancer cell therapy partner Arcellx for up to $7.8 billion.

CSL hands Lilly rights to an anti-IL-6 asset

Eli Lilly has agreed to pay $100 million upfront for rights to clazakizumab, an anti-IL-6 antibody that failed a phase 3 development programme in the prevention of organ transplant rejection, from Australia's CSL. The deal also includes undisclosed clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as royalties on global net sales.

Despite the transplant setback, CSL has continued to develop clazakizumab for the prevention of cardiovascular complications in people living with end-stage kidney disease. It is retaining the rights to that programme, and giving Lilly a license to develop the antibody for other potential indications.

Lilly hasn't revealed its specific development plans for clazakizumab, but IL-6-targeting drugs such as Actemra/RoActemra (tocilizumab), Sanofi/Regeneron's Kevzara (sarilumab), and EUSA Pharma's Sylvant (siltuximab) are on the market for a range of autoimmune and rare indications, including rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, giant cell arteritis, and Castleman disease.