Business
Exelixis and Adagene Enter into Collaboration and License Agreement to Develop Novel Masked Antibody-Drug Conjugate Therapies with Improved Safety and Efficacy Profiles
- Exelixis will utilize Adagene’s proprietary SAFEbody™ technology to develop novel masked antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with potential for improved
About this update from Exelixis, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"\n- Exelixis will utilize Adagene’s proprietary SAFEbody™ technology to develop novel masked antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with potential for improved therapeutic index -\n\n ALAMEDA, Calif., SAN FRANCISCO & SUZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nExelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL) and Adagene today announced a collaboration and license agreement under which Exelixis will utilize Adagene’s SAFEbody™ technology platform to generate masked versions of monoclonal antibodies from Exelixis’ growing preclinical pipeline for the development of ADCs or other innovative biologics against Exelixis-nominated targets. Under the terms of the agreement, Exelixis will make an upfront payment of $11 million to Adagene and will have the ability to nominate two targets during the collaboration term. Adagene will be eligible for development and commercialization milestones, as well as royalties on net sales of products developed around each of these targets.\nThis press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210201005459/en/\n“SAFEbody provides a solution to on-target off-tumor toxicity, which is a long-lasting challenge associated with many approved antibody therapeutics,” said Peter Luo, Ph.D., Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of Adagene. “This partnership with Exelixis strengthens our growing roster of collaborations with global biopharmaceutical companies. We are very pleased to collaborate with Exelixis and look forward to the company’s development of ADCs that leverage our SAFEbody technology.”\n\nBiologic therapies, including therapeutic antibodies such as ADCs, are designed to bind to their targets with high efficiency. However, while the targets for biologic cancer therapies are expressed at high levels in cancer cells, many are also expressed at lower levels on healthy cells. Binding of these therapies to healthy cells may lead to unwanted safety or tolerability issues. Adagene’s SAFEbody platform is designed to overcome this challenge by incorporating a masking peptide that covers the binding domain of the biologic therapy. Specific conditions within the tumor environment allow the biologic therapy to preferentially bind to its target in tumor cells. This allows for improved tumor-specific targeting of antibodies while minimizing on-target toxicity in healthy tissues. Ad...