Almirall and EpimAb Biotherapeutics have announced a bispecific antibody partnership worth up to $210m.

The agreement will give dermatology-focused Almirall a licence to utilise EpimAb’s Fabs-In-Tandem Immunoglobulin (FIT-Ig) platform to generate, develop and commercialise bispecific antibodies.

Almirall will have exclusive global rights for any resulting products and, in exchange, EpimAb is eligible to receive milestone payments totalling up to $210m plus royalties on net sales.

Karl Ziegelbauer, executive vice president, research and development, and chief scientific officer of Almirall, said the agreement was “an important step” towards the company’s ambition to develop new biologics in the dermatology field.

EpimAb’s FIT-Ig platform generates bispecific antibodies using only the basic structural parts of monoclonal antibodies without adding any complex changes.

The company has so far focused the technology within the oncology space and currently has five clinical-stage assets being evaluated for indications including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), gastrointestinal cancer and multiple myeloma.

Its most advanced candidate is EMB-01, a bispecific antibody designed to target both EGFR and cMet on tumour cells, currently in phase 1/2 trials for NSCLC and gastrointestinal cancers.

Dr Chengbin Wu, chief executive officer and founder of EpimAb, said: “While we have made significant progress in utilising our platform technology to develop a differentiated portfolio of bispecific antibodies in oncology, the potential of our platform in other areas such as immunology remains untapped.

"We believe Almirall is the partner of choice for this endeavour and look forward to exploring the use of our novel bispecific platform to offer additional treatment options for patients with immune-related disorders.”

The partnership comes just a few months after Almirall said it had raised €200m in investment capital to boost its pipeline.

The Gallardo family, which holds a majority stake in the company, participated in the offering and raised its ownership to 60.14% of its share capital.

Almirall said at the time of the announcement that it intended to use the net proceeds of the capital increase to "retain financial flexibility and agility to actively pursue and swiftly execute inorganic growth opportunities, including bolt-on acquisitions and in-licensing opportunities, that are currently under analysis".

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/almirall_and_epimab_biotherapeutics_enter_$210m_bispecific_antibody_partnership_1501852