BIND Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage nanomedicine company developing targeted and programmable therapeutics called Accurins, announced that Pfizer Inc. exercised its option to obtain an exclusive license to develop and commercialise an Accurin drug candidate for the treatment of solid tumours under the companies' global collaboration agreement.
The actively targeted Accurin is designed to impart cellular targeting capability and was engineered by BIND using one of Pfizer's proprietary kinase inhibitors and one of BIND's proprietary ligands. As a result of the option exercise, BIND will receive a $2.5 million option exercise fee from Pfizer. In parallel with exercising its first option, Pfizer informed BIND that it will not exercise its option for the second compound in the collaboration.
"Pfizer's decision to obtain an exclusive license to our actively targeted Accurin further validates what we believe is the unique ability of our platform to optimize the therapeutic potential of potent pathway inhibitors," said Andrew Hirsch, president and chief executive officer at BIND Therapeutics.
"This milestone with Pfizer is an important step toward our goal of advancing this innovative Accurin drug candidate into clinical testing. Working closely with Pfizer has allowed us to identify the Accurin candidate with the greatest potential in the collaboration. We now have the potential to have at least four Accurins in clinical development over the next two years, both through collaborations and with internal product candidates. With our belief in the ability of Accurins to deliver the right concentration of the right drug to the right place for the right amount of time, combined with Pfizer's experience and expertise, we are pleased to move to the next stage in this collaboration."
"Our experiments to date have resulted in data that we believe justify advancing this candidate to the next stage of research," said Robert Abraham, Ph.D., senior vice president, Oncology-Rinat Research & Development Group, Pfizer.
"BIND's Accurin technology may help us to achieve an optimal efficacy-safety ratio for this investigational drug. We look forward to further exploring this potential in our ongoing collaboration with BIND."
Under terms of the original collaboration agreement, which was established in April 2013, Pfizer was granted options to obtain exclusive licenses to pursue development and commercialisation of two Accurins that incorporate specified Pfizer small molecular targeted therapies. For the Accurin that has been selected, both companies will work together on preclinical research; Pfizer will have responsibility for development and commercialisation, and BIND will conduct chemistry, manufacturing and control activities.
In addition to the $2.5 million option exercise fee, BIND received an upfront payment of $4.0 million in 2013 and achieved a $1.0 million preclinical development milestone for the selected Accurin in December 2014. BIND has the potential to receive additional milestone payments for the selected Accurin of up to $86.0 million in aggregate upon the achievement of additional specified development and regulatory events under the Pfizer collaboration agreement. BIND may also receive additional milestone payments for the selected Accurin of up to $110 million in aggregate for specified commercial events as well as royalties in the low single to high single digit percentages on potential future sales of the selected Accurin, if any.