Ono, Boehringer add to cancer pipelines with licensing deals

Ono Pharma and Boehringer Ingelheim both added to their cancer pipelines, licensing drugs from LigaChem Bio and Circle Pharma, respectively.

Ono's deal with South Korean antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) specialist LigaChem is worth up to $700 million and covers a license to a preclinical-stage candidate for solid tumours, as well as an R&D collaboration to seek out other ADC candidates.

The Japanese drugmaker's clinical-stage pipeline does not currently feature any ADCs, which have transformed the treatment of various cancer types in recent years and have become sought-after assets in pharma.

In a statement, Ono said that the LCB97 candidate targets L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) – a transmembrane protein that has been reported to be highly expressed in multiple solid tumours – and has a shot at becoming a first-in-class therapy. LigaChem has preclinical data showing anti-tumour effects for the ADC in multiple mouse cancer models.

The drug was generated using LigaChem's ConjuAll ADC platform, which aims to solve some of the current challenges with these drugs, including the early release of the anticancer drug payload from the molecule, which can lead to off-target side effects.

It also allows antibodies to be converted to ADCs with minimal modification, preserving their targeting properties and includes new prodrug toxins to improve the safety of the drugs even further by keeping them inactive until they reach the tumour site.

Meanwhile, Boehringer's agreement with South San Francisco-based Circle Pharma – worth up to $607 million – also focuses on a potential first-in-class drug, in this case a cyclin inhibitor that they believe could have potential across a range of hard-to-treat cancers.

Cyclins are a broad group of proteins that are intimately involved in the regulation of cell division and are known to be associated with some cancers when things go wrong, leading to uncontrolled cell growth. According to Boehringer, current drugs targeting cyclins – which generally activate enzymes called cyclin-dependent kinases (CKs) – can be limited by low selectivity and toxicity.

Circle Pharma is fresh off a $90 million Series D financing that is earmarked for clinical testing of CID-078, an orally active cyclin A/B RxL inhibitor in development as a treatment for solid tumours, and follow-up compounds in its 'macrocycle' class. Macrocycles lie between small-molecule and biologic drugs, combining the ease of delivery and absorption of the former with the targeting power of the latter.

The identity of the cyclin inhibitor in the Boehringer alliance has not been disclosed.

Image by Tung Nguyen from Pixabay