From European and Biotech Industry News, Boehringer Ingelheim secured rights to another antibody technology through a licence and development deal with Austrian f-star Biotechnologische Forschungs-und Entwicklungsges.m.b.H. The deal is worth up to EUR1.26bn and is the largest deal ever achieved by an Austrian biotech company.
f-star will develop antibodies based on its proprietary Modular Antibody Technology (MAT) against 7 targets selected by BI. The upfront payment was not disclosed and BI is to pay up to EUR180 M for every successful program including research-based funding, licence fees, development, regulatory and commercial milestones plus royalties on product sales.
The collaboration will focus on two proprietary antibody formats of f-star – FCABs and MAB2. FCABs are antibody fragments with full functionality but are only one third of the size of full-lengh monoclonal antibodies. Due to the localization of essential functional sites of antibodies in the CH2 and CH3 domains this molecule has the potential to offer antibody functionality: long biological half-life, effector functions, Protein A binding, and two antigen-binding sites.
MAB2 are full length bi-specific IgG antibodies with 2 additional functionalities engineered into the constant CDR regions. Therefore, completely new therapeutic applications become possible. Examples include oligovalence (additional binding sites to the same disease antigen), dual targeting (additional binding sites to a second disease antigen, all within one single molecule) or tissue targeting (additional binding site to tissue-specific markers, transporting the antibody to the site of action)
The market for therapeutic mABs reached global revenues of $36.4 B last year and is estimated to reach $62.7 B by 2015, according to Datamonitor.
Posted by Bruce Lehr November 25th 2010.
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