Celgene, Sutro Strike Partnership For ADC R&D

Celgene Corporation and Sutro Biopharma have entered into a strategic collaboration and option agreement to discover and develop multispecific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). The two companies also partnered in 2012 with a focus on immuno-oncology for undisclosed targets in an effort to expand the Sutro discovery platform and biotherapeutic development, the Sutro announcement says.

The new collaboration includes the following terms:

• The companies will again explore the immuno-oncology space, including PD-1 and PD-L1 and other novel targets.
• Celgene will have the exclusive option to acquire Sutro and the rights to all Sutro-owned programs at that time.
• Sutro will receive upfront payments of $95 million and could also earn an additional $90 million should the company hit certain manufacturing and productivity milestones during the initial research period.
• For an additional payment, Celgene will be given the opportunity to extend the collaboration beyond the initial research timeframe.
• Sutro will perform the R&D as well as early pre-clinical development of all collaboration-related antibodies and ADCs, and it will be responsible for manufacturing all pre-clinical product candidates.
• The partnership could also result in a clinical and commercial supply agreement

Between earnings for reaching clinical and regulatory milestones along with royalties from product revenue, Sutro could rack up more than $1 billion in total payments during the course of the joint research venture.

"Substantive progress and unique advantages of Sutro's platform have led us to expand and extend our relationship, as a key capability supporting our emerging Immuno-Oncology pipeline,” Thomas Daniel, M.D., Celgene president, global research and early development, said. “We see this collaboration as a unique opportunity to accelerate the evaluation and development of important products in this and other strategic areas of high potential impact.”

In addition, Celgene may choose to be responsible for global development and marketing, in turn garnering global rights to all the products gleaned from the collaboration. For products that are not licensed to Celgene under the collaboration, Sutro would retain worldwide rights if Celgene should choose not to acquire Sutro.