Medical
globenewswire | September 12, 2023
Nurix Therapeutics, Inc. a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted protein modulation drugs designed to treat patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, today announced that it has entered into a multi-year, multi-target strategic collaboration agreement with Seagen Inc. to advance a new class of medicines called Degrader-Antibody Conjugates (DACs) for use in cancer. The collaboration between the two companies will focus on an innovative approach to combine two powerful technologies to target cancer—antibody-drug conjugation (ADC) and targeted protein degradation (TPD)—with the goal of creating drugs with new mechanisms of action as well as improved specificity and anti-cancer activity.
“By combining the tissue and tumor specificity of antibodies with highly potent and catalytic targeted degradation of cancer driver proteins, we believe that DACs may represent a next generation of cancer medicine for a wide range of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies,” said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Nurix. “With Seagen, our strategic goal is to advance ADC technology to the next level to provide patients with new DAC drugs that deliver greater anti-tumor efficacy and safety compared to currently available agents.”
“The targeted protein degrader modality provides unique advantages over payloads currently employed across the ADC field,” said Gwenn M. Hansen, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Nurix. “This collaboration is a new application of our DELigase technology, and we are delighted to work with Seagen, a pioneer in the development and commercialization of ADC therapeutics, to create a new generation of drugs to fight cancer.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Nurix will receive an upfront payment of $60 million and has the potential to receive up to approximately $3.4 billion in research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments across multiple programs. In addition, Nurix will be eligible for mid-single to low double digit tiered royalties on future sales, and Nurix retains an option for U.S. profit sharing and co-promotion on two products arising from the collaboration. As part of the multi-year collaboration, Nurix will use its proprietary DELigase platform to develop a suite of targeted protein degraders against multiple targets nominated by Seagen that are suitable for antibody conjugation. Seagen will be responsible for conjugating these degraders to antibodies to make DACs and advancing these DAC drug candidates through preclinical and clinical development and commercialization. Given the potential to conjugate multiple antibodies to unique degraders, several DAC drugs may be developed and commercialized within this collaboration.
With the receipt of the $60 million upfront payment, Nurix expects that its existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, excluding any future potential milestones from collaborations, will be sufficient to fund its operating activities into the second quarter of 2025.
About Nurix Therapeutics, Inc.
Nurix Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative medicines based on the modulation of cellular protein levels as a novel treatment approach for cancer and other challenging diseases. Leveraging extensive expertise in E3 ligases together with proprietary DNA-encoded libraries, Nurix has built DELigase, an integrated discovery platform, to identify and advance novel drug candidates targeting E3 ligases, a broad class of enzymes that can modulate proteins within the cell. Nurix’s drug discovery approach is to either harness or inhibit the natural function of E3 ligases within the ubiquitin-proteasome system to selectively decrease or increase cellular protein levels. Nurix’s wholly owned, clinical stage pipeline includes targeted protein degraders of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, a B-cell signaling protein, and inhibitors of Casitas B-lineage lymphoma proto-oncogene B, an E3 ligase that regulates activation of multiple immune cell types including T cell and NK cells. Nurix is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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Medical
PR Newswire | October 17, 2023
Ginkgo Bioworks which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, and Zenfold Sustainable Technologies, a company focused on developing and manufacturing specialty ingredients using sustainable technologies and precision fermentation, today announced a collaboration to leverage Ginkgo Enzyme Services in its effort to discover an enzyme critical to the manufacturing of veterinary products. This partnership aims to replace traditional chemical processes in veterinary active ingredient production with a sustainable biological method.
"This collaboration marks a significant step forward in Zenfold's mission to bring sustainable manufacturing technology to the veterinary medicine industry," said Dr. BSV Prasad, CEO and Managing Director of Zenfold Sustainable Technologies. "By utilizing Ginkgo's expertise and innovation, we are well-positioned to develop a sustainable solution that will have a lasting impact on the Indian market and beyond."
"We are excited to partner with Zenfold, which brings a powerful vision of sustainable biotechnology to veterinary active ingredient development. This collaboration will enable us to apply our state-of-the-art enzyme discovery module to enable more innovation in the veterinary medicine space," said Jennifer Wipf, SVP, Head of Commercial, Cell Engineering at Ginkgo. "The project involves creating a broad library of cDNA candidates from a metagenomic collection of billions of enzyme sequences. That's the kind of scale visionary projects like this need, and Ginkgo is committed to scaling up this solution for the betterment of animal health and the environment."
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty chemicals. Ginkgo's biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, is building global infrastructure for biosecurity to empower governments, communities, and public health leaders to prevent, detect and respond to a wide variety of biological threats.
About Zenfold
Zenfold Sustainable Technologies is a pioneer in the field of sustainable biology, with a focus on veterinary actives and enzyme supply. This collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks marks Zenfold's expansion into the global veterinary market and further emphasizes their commitment to environmental responsibility and innovative biological solutions.
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Medical
businesswire | September 21, 2023
AbCellera announced that it has expanded its existing multi-target collaboration with Regeneron to discover therapeutic antibodies for up to eight targets selected by Regeneron, increased from the original four.
“Having successfully delivered on two challenging discovery campaigns under the original agreement, we are excited to expand the scope of our collaboration with Regeneron to include up to four additional targets,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., founder and CEO of AbCellera. “We look forward to using our antibody discovery and development engine to bolster Regeneron’s preclinical portfolio and help identify promising candidates for their programs.”
The collaboration, which began in March 2020, leverages AbCellera’s antibody discovery engine and Regeneron’s VelocImmune® mice to identify novel therapeutic antibodies. AbCellera has initiated programs for all four of the original targets, with Regeneron exercising its rights to advance antibody candidates into further preclinical development for the two programs that have been completed.
Under the terms of the agreement, Regeneron has the right to develop and commercialize therapeutic antibodies resulting from the collaboration. AbCellera receives research payments and is eligible to receive downstream clinical and regulatory milestone payments and royalties on net sales of products.
About AbCellera Biologics Inc.
AbCellera is breaking the barriers of conventional antibody drug discovery to bring better medicines to patients, sooner. AbCellera’s engine integrates expert teams, technology, and facilities with the data science and automation needed to propel antibody-based medicines from target to clinic in nearly every therapeutic area with precision and speed. AbCellera provides innovative biotechs and leading pharmaceutical companies with a competitive advantage that empowers them to move quickly, reduce cost, and tackle the toughest problems in drug development.
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