Johnson & Johnson's Centocor unit has had recent success bringing next-generation therapeutic antibodies to market in the form of drugs like Stelara (ustekinumab) for severe plaque psoriasis and Simponi (golimumab) for rheumatoid arthritis, which offer dosing advantages over existing drugs. The drug development strategy is one Centocor is poised to build on in a licensing deal with the antibody developer Xencor.
The two companies announced the licensing arrangement Nov. 30 under which Centocor gains rights to Xencor's XmAb and Xtend technology platforms to optimize Centocor's antibody drug candidates. With the multi-year deal, Centocor has the right to develop and commercialize a specified number of optimized candidates, and, in exchange, Xencor will receive an undisclosed upfront fee, annual maintenance fee and be eligible to receive milestones and royalties on any products commercialized under the collaboration.
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J&J developed Simponi and Stelara using the UltiMab antibody development platform from Medarex, an antibody developer that Bristol-Myers Squibb recently acquired for $2.4 billion.
In a business area in which many of the players have been snatched up by bigger pharmas, privately-held Xencor is still swinging solo. M&A activity has been hot in the space as drug makers look to enhance their pipelines with therapeutic antibodies that are more effective and longer-lasting than those already on the market, especially given the increasing threat of biosimilar drugs.
The latest announcement between Centocor and Xencor reflects Xencor's ongoing strategy to get its technology placed into drug candidates at the leading pharmaceutical companies so that it can be advanced and used more broadly, CEO Bassil Dahiyat said in an interview. Still, he said Xencor is selective in its partnering. "We don't give unfettered access," he said.
Xencor has inked a slew of similar licensing deals with drug makers recently, including Pfizer and Merck in March and with CSL Limited in February.
Centocor too has already been a partner of Xencor. In 2006, Centocor licensed the rights to Xencor's ImmunoFilter technology, a predictive software to evaluate the potential immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins, and earlier in 2005, the firm licensed the rights to XmAb to create antibody drug candidates against an oncology target. Xencor's early partnering focus was largely in oncology, but the company has found its XmAb technology targeting the Fc region of antibodies to have utility in autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.
"That additional piece of the technology portfolio has greatly expanded the scope," Dahiyat said. "Autoimmune and inflammatory, those are the two most important driving areas." Nonetheless, he declined to comment on what therapeutic areas the deal with Centocor involves, though the business unit's focus is largely in the autoinflammatory area.
XmAb and Xtend offer the opportunity to create differentiated antibody drugs that are more potent and last longer. The Xtend platform can enhance the serum half-life of immunoglobulin molecules with the potential to offer a dosing advantage at greater than once monthly intervals. XmAb can increase the potency of antibodies by engaging the body's immune system against target antigen cells.
Xencor is developing its own internal drugs using the technology. The lead candidate is XmAb 2513, a monoclonal antibody targeting CD30 in Phase I clinical development for the treatment of relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma and T cell lymphomas.
-Jessica Merrill
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