Sanofi and BioNTech in cancer immunotherapy partnership
pharmafile | November 3, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | BioNTech, Cancer, Sanofi, immunotherapy
Sanofi and BioNTech have agreed a new multi-year exclusive collaboration and license agreement, to discover and develop up to five cancer immunotherapies.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will pay $60 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments. BioNTech, which is based in Mainz, Germany, could receive more than $300 million in other development, regulatory and commercial milestones and other payments per product.
Additionally, if commercialised successfully, BioNTech would also be eligible for tiered royalties on net sales up to double digits, and it has the option to co-develop and co-commercialise two of the five therapeutics products with Sanofi in the European Union and the United States.
BioNTech will combine its proprietary messenger RNA (mRNA) technology platform with its extensive capabilities in developing immune-stimulating drugs. BioNTech will also supply part of the mRNA material needed for development activities from its in-house GMP manufacturing unit. This week BioNtech also joined a European Commission initiative to develop novel candidate HIV vaccines that can be taken to human clinical trials within five years.
Sanofi has oncology experience, and has signed similar deals with Evotec and Apeiron to develop novel cancer immunotherapies. However the French firm has suffered several setbacks in recent years, Sanofi has been attempting to develop a strong oncology portfolio in recent years, but has encountered a number of notable setbacks. In 2013 it ditched two late-stage compounds – iniparib for non-small cell lung cancer and fedratinib for bone marrow cancer – due to inefficacy and safety concerns, respectively.
“Immunotherapy has shown promise as an avenue to develop potentially curative treatments for people with cancer, and Sanofi has strategically launched a number of inter-company collaborations in this area in recent months,” says Elias Zerhouni, president of global R&D at Sanofi. “Our collaboration with BioNTech has the potential to lay the foundation for a unique therapeutic modality in immuno-oncology.”
Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, says: “The collaboration with Sanofi is ground-breaking: through using our broad suite of mRNA technologies and extensive tumour immunology understanding, it will allow us to develop a completely new class of cancer immune-therapeutics with Sanofi, which we believe will have a profound and deep impact on the treatment of cancer.
“This alliance is in line with our strategy to collaborate with companies that share our passion and drive to develop and commercialise truly innovative and disruptive immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.”
Joel Levy
Related Content
Sanofi shares results for phase 3 LUNA 3 trial in immune thrombocytopenia
Sanofi has announced positive results from its phase 3 LUNA 3 study, which assessed rilzabrutinib …
Geneos Therapeutics shares data from phase 1/2 trial for cancer vaccine
Geneos Therapeutics has announced that it has published positive safety, immunogenicity and efficacy data from …
Curve Therapeutics’ CSO publishes research on HIF inhibition for cancer treatment
Curve Therapeutics has announced that its chief scientific officer, Professor Ali Tavassoli has published research …
