Seagen and Nurix Therapeutics have entered into a multi-year, multi-target strategic collaboration agreement worth more than $3.4bn, to advance a new class of medicines for use in cancer.

The companies will work to combine antibody-drug conjugation (ADC) and targeted protein degradation (TPD), aiming to create drugs with new mechanisms of action and improve specificity and anti-cancer activity.

Under the terms of the agreement, Seagen will provide an upfront payment of $60m to Nurix, with the potential to receive up to approximately $3.4bn in research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments across multiple programmes, as well as mid-single to low double-digit tiered royalties on future sales.

As part of the collaboration, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Nurix will utilise its proprietary DELigase platform to develop targeted protein degraders against multiple targets nominated by Seagen that are suitable for antibody conjugation.

Seagen will conjugate these degraders to antibodies to make a new class of medicines called degrader-antibody conjugates (DACs) and advance DAC drug candidates through preclinical and clinical development and commercialisation.

If successful, several DAC drugs could be developed and commercialised through this collaboration.

"By combining the tissue and tumour specificity of antibodies with highly potent and catalytic targeted degradation of cancer driver proteins, we believe that DACs may represent a next generation of cancer medicine for a wide range of solid tumours and haematologic malignancies," said Arthur Sands, president and chief executive officer of Nurix.

"This collaboration is a new application of our DELigase technology, and we are delighted to work with Seagen... to create a new generation of drugs to fight cancer," said Gwenn Hansen, chief scientific officer of Nurix.

The collaboration follows positive results from Seagen and Genmab’s late-stage study of their ADC Tivdak (tisotumab vedotin) in advanced cervical cancer.

Tivdak met the study’s primary endpoint after it showed improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy alone.

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/seagen_and_nurix_announce_oncology_partnership_worth_over_$3.4bn_1499062