Netherlands-based biotech company Synaffix earlier today confirmed the expansion of a license agreement with Shanghai Miracogen, a Chinese biotechnology company with a clinical-stage pipeline of antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs.
The agreement between the two companies affirms the collaboration in developing and commercializing a second candidate antibody-drug conjugate and brings the total of ADCs using Synaffix’s proprietary GlycoConnect™ and HydraSpace™ ADC technologies under development to six investigational agents.
Enhancing antibody-drug cojugates
The clinical-stage GlycoConnect™ and HydraSpace™ technologies enable best-in-class ADCs with significantly enhanced efficacy and tolerability. GlycoConnect exploits the native glycan for site-specific and stable payload attachment while HydraSpace is the compact and highly polar spacer technology. These technologies can be applied directly to any existing antibody without any protein sequence engineering and are compatible with all ADC payload classes.
Agreement
Under the terms of the agreement, Shanghai Miracogen has been granted non-exclusive rights to Synaffix’s proprietary GlycoConnect™ and HydraSpace™ ADC technologies for use in this second clinical candidate. In turn, Synaffix is eligible to receive upfront, milestone and royalty payments tied to this new program.
The companies did not disclose any financial details.
The original agreement was announced in April 2019, with Shanghai Miracogen responsible for the research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of its ADC product, and Synaffix responsible for the manufacturing of components specifically related to its proprietary ADC technologies.
Under the terms of the original agreement Synaffix was eligible to receive upfront and potential milestone payments that total $125 million, plus royalties.
Rapid and successful progression
“This expansion of our licensing agreement has resulted from the rapid and successful progression of Shanghai Miracogen’s first ADC program with us and our strong working relationship. With six announced ADCs now under clinical or preclinical development based on Synaffix platform technologies, this expansion serves as further testament to the maturity of our proprietary ADC technologies,” noted Peter van de Sande, Chief Executive Officer of Synaffix.
“We look forward to continuing to work closely with Miracogen to develop innovative ADCs with enhanced therapeutic indexes for the treatment of cancer,” he added.
“Having worked with Synaffix over the past year and having seen highly positive results arising from the use of the GlycoConnect and HydraSpace technologies, we decided to expand the license agreement into a second ADC candidate,” Mary Hu, Chief Executive Officer of Shanghai Miracogen
“Using Synaffix’s platform, we hope to develop an additional ADC product candidate with an enhanced therapeutic index, and ultimately benefit cancer patients,” Hu added.
Based on ongoing results, Synaffix proprietary GlycoConnect and HydraSpace technologies consistently generate ADCs that are more effective and better tolerated when compared to the three major clinical-stage ADC conjugation technologies. In addition to their agreement with Shanghai Miracogen, the company established a collaboration with ADC Therapeutics and Mersana Therapeutics.
