Seattle Genetics Inc and CuraGen Corporation announced that CuraGen has licensed Seattle Genetics' proprietary Announce Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology for use with CuraGen's proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, according to a release.
CuraGen will pay an upfront fee of $2.0 million for access to the ADC technology for one of CuraGen's proprietary antibody programmes. CuraGen also has an option to access Seattle Genetics' ADC technology for a second CuraGen proprietary antibody programme in exchange for payment of an additional fee.
Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Seattle Genetics may receive up to $28 million in milestone payments assuming successful development of two antibody therapeutics employing ADC technology and will receive royalties on net sales of resulting products. CuraGen is responsible for research, product development, manufacturing and commercialization of all products under the collaboration. CuraGen will pay maintenance and material supply fees as well as research support payments for any assistance provided by Seattle Genetics in developing ADC products.
"Our industry-leading ADC technology can be widely employed to increase the therapeutic potential of monoclonal antibodies through stable attachment to cell-killing drug payloads," stated Clay B Siegall, president and CEO of Seattle Genetics. "We believe ADCs will play a significant role in the future of antibody-based treatments for patients with cancer and other diseases. We look forward to collaborating with CuraGen on ADCs directed to disease targets identified through CuraGen's proprietary genomics platform," he added.
"We are pleased to be working with Seattle Genetics as we have multiple proprietary antibodies that specifically target tumour cells that we are advancing to clinical development in 2005 and beyond, and the use of Seattle Genetics' industry-leading ADC technology greatly enhances our ability to create more potent therapies," stated Jonathan M. Rothberg, CEO, president and chairman. "As we continue to advance CG53135 and PXD101 through clinical development and initiate clinical trials for our first fully human monoclonal antibody, CR002, we are building important clinical momentum which will set the stage for additional drugs coming from our unique ability to leverage genomics and synergistic technologies," Rothberg added.
CuraGen has taken a systematic approach to identify and select targets from the human genome for drug development. Through a broad collaboration with Abgenix, CuraGen has today several proprietary antibodies in animal validation for oncology and inflammatory disease. The collaboration between CuraGen and Seattle Genetics will enable CuraGen to develop therapies that specifically target cancer cells using ADC technology with its proprietary antibodies. CuraGen expects to announce in 2004 additional candidates for clinical development in 2005 and beyond taken from its pipeline of protein, antibody and small molecule programs currently in animal validation.
Seattle Genetics' ADC technology utilizes the targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies to deliver potent, cell-killing payloads to specific cells. This ADC technology employs synthetic, highly potent drugs that can be attached to antibodies through proprietary linker systems. The linkers are designed to be stable in the bloodstream but to release the drug payload under specific conditions once inside target cells, thereby sparing non-target cells many of the toxic effects of traditional chemotherapy. ADCs can increase the therapeutic potential of the many antibodies with targeting ability but limited or no inherent cell-killing activity.