On August 4, 2021 Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. (TSE:4151, President and CEO: Masashi Miyamoto, "Kyowa Kirin"), a global specialty pharmaceutical company that strives to create new value through the pursuit of advances in life sciences and technologies, and Synaffix B.V. (CEO: Peter van de Sande, "Synaffix"), a biotechnology company with a clinical-stage platform technology enabling best-in-class antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), reported the signing of a license and option agreement (Press release, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585649]).
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In exchange for the license signature fee, Synaffix will initially provide target-specific rights to its proprietary ADC technologies, enabling Kyowa Kirin to evaluate two of its antibodies as proprietary ADC therapeutic candidates within its pipeline. Kyowa Kirin may expand the deal with additional ADC targets at a later point in time. Under the terms of the agreement, upon exercise of an option by Kyowa Kirin for further development and commercialisation of such selected ADC target, Synaffix is eligible to receive a license issuance fee for each additional target and milestone payments plus royalties on potential future commercial sales of ADCs developed against each licensed target. The agreement is the culmination of a successful initial research period between the companies.
The technologies licensed from Synaffix include GlycoConnect, HydraSpace, and multiple toxSYN linker-payloads, which allow for the drug-to-antibody ratio (DAR) to be tailored to 1, 2 or 4 to optimize the therapeutic index of the ADC.
Yoshifumi Torii, Executive Officer, Vice President, Head of R&D Division of Kyowa Kirin said:
"Kyowa Kirin is committed to realizing the successful creation and delivery of life-changing value that ultimately makes people smile. We believe that Synaffix’s cutting-edge ADC technologies will enable us to rapidly generate multiple potential ADC pharmaceutical candidates, spanning different mechanisms of action and optimal structures, under a single, simple technology access license and result in providing new therapeutic options for people living with disease."
Peter van de Sande, CEO of Synaffix said:
"This collaboration is our sixth announced out-licensing deal, expanding the geographic footprint of and validation of our ADC technologies. At the same time, this brings the number of ADCs in development based on Synaffix’ technologies beyond 10, with three of those partnered programs already in clinical trials."
"We look forward to building on our already close collaboration with the Kyowa Kirin team over the coming years to successfully address areas of high unmet medical need."