AstraZeneca Licenses Regeneron's VelocImmune(R) Technology for Discovering Human Monoclonal Antibodies
Monday February 5, 5:30 am ET
AstraZeneca Is First Licensee of Novel VelocImmune Technology
License Fees Total up to $120 Million Over Six Years
TARRYTOWN, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: REGN - News) announced today it has entered into a non-exclusive license agreement that will allow AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN, NYSE: AZN) to utilize Regeneron's VelocImmune® technology in its internal research programs to discover human monoclonal antibodies. AstraZeneca will conduct the work at Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) in the UK as part of its recently stated aim of building a biopharmaceutical capability.
AstraZeneca will pay $20 million upfront and will make up to five additional annual payments of $20 million, subject to the ability to terminate the agreement after making the first three additional payments. Upon commercialization of any antibody products discovered utilizing VelocImmune, AstraZeneca will pay to Regeneron a mid-single-digit royalty on product sales.
"VelocImmune is the centerpiece of Regeneron's suite of technologies for the discovery and development of fully human antibodies," said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., President of Regeneron Research Laboratories and Regeneron's Chief Scientific Officer. "We are pleased that AstraZeneca, a company with a clear strategic commitment to developing therapeutic antibodies, has selected the VelocImmune platform for its internal development program."
"AstraZeneca is committed to becoming a leader in the area of biologicals and VelocImmune is an important part of our strategy to succeed in this field," said Jan Lundberg, Ph.D., Executive VP Global Discovery Research.
Alex Duncan, Ph.D., CAT's SVP Drug Discovery, commented, "This combination of CAT's display technologies and the VelocImmune platform will provide enormous potential for creating antibody therapeutics."
VelocImmune and Regeneron's Discovery Platforms
Regeneron's VelocImmune technology offers the potential to increase dramatically the speed and efficiency of discovering fully-human, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. The VelocImmune platform generates fully human monoclonal antibodies (hMAbs) to address clinically relevant targets of therapeutic interest. The VelocImmune mouse, unlike other hMAb mice, mounts a robust immune response that is virtually indistinguishable from that of a wild type mouse, resulting in a reliable and efficient platform for discovering fully human monoclonal antibodies.
Regeneron has developed and validated a suite of inter-related technology platforms - VelociGene®, VeliciMouse®, and VelocImmune -- that the Company believes can accelerate its therapeutic drug discovery programs and improve its ability to discover new hMAb product candidates through VelocImmune. These discovery platforms are designed to identify specific genes of therapeutic interest for a particular disease or cell type and validate targets through high-throughput production of mammalian models. VelociGene uses a proprietary process to create genetic modifications in a mouse in a precise and high-throughput manner and was recently selected by the National Institutes of Health for use in its Knockout Mouse Project. VelociGene allows Regeneron to produce mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells rapidly for elucidating the function of the altered genes. VelociMouse allows Regeneron scientists to generate mammalian models directly from ES cells without the need for chimeras or breeding. VelocImmune provides antibodies that address the targets identified in the mammalian models that can be developed as potential therapeutics. |
