Adimab Announces Antibody Discovery Collaboration with Takeda

On April 26, 2016 Adimab LLC, the global leader in the discovery and optimization of fully human monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, reported a multi-target partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, Adimab will use its proprietary platform to discover and optimize antibodies against multiple targets chosen by Takeda, who will have the right to develop and commercialize therapeutic programs resulting from the collaboration (Press release, Adimab, APR 26, 2016, View Source [SID1234536592]).

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"We are pleased to be working with a company with such deep expertise in antibody discovery and engineering," stated Christopher Claiborne, Ph.D., Head of Oncology Discovery at Takeda. "Adimab’s breadth of technical offerings, including bispecifics, as well as their reputation in the industry enables us to continue fulfilling our mission of aspiring to cure cancer."

"We are excited to have Takeda as a partner, and we look forward to demonstrating Adimab’s advantages to the Takeda team," said Tillman Gerngross, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Adimab. "This partnership, like most of our initial partnerships, will focus on a handful of projects. Our goal is to have our partners see the output from the collaboration and fall in love with the platform. We are always happy to expand the initial collaboration into additional funded discovery projects, or even transfer the platform to our partner’s facilities – to date most of our partnerships have expanded in some way."

Under the terms of the agreement, Adimab will use its proprietary yeast-based discovery and optimization platform or its proprietary rapid B cell sorting capabilities to identify fully human antibodies and against selected targets. For each target, Adimab will grant Takeda the right to research antibodies generated during the collaboration for potential use in therapeutic products. Adimab will receive an undisclosed upfront payment, research fees and technical milestones. In addition, for each target Takeda will have the option to exclusively license antibodies generated during the collaboration as a therapeutic lead, for which Adimab would receive license fees, clinical milestones and royalties on product sales.

Over the past seven years, Adimab has established funded discovery collaborations with over 35 companies. With this collaboration, Takeda joins Adimab’s other large pharmaceutical funded discovery partners, including Novo Nordisk, Biogen, GSK, Roche, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Celgene, Gilead, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Sanofi and others. Adimab has also partnered with many mid-size and early-stage venture-backed companies, including Merrimack, Five Prime, Jounce, Innovent, Alector, Acceleron, Oncothyreon, Surface Oncology, Potenza, Arsanis and others, as well as academic institutions such as Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson. In addition to funded discovery programs, the Adimab antibody discovery and optimization platform and custom antibody libraries have been transferred to Merck, Novo Nordisk, Biogen and GSK for internal use.