A firm developing a special protein-targeting platform for use in biotech drugs has signed a deal with Swiss drugmaker Roche potentially worth nearly $200 million or more.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based GO Therapeutics said Tuesday that it had signed the deal with Roche, which includes $9 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments and up to $186 million in potential milestone payments, plus royalties on any future product sales in the mid-single-digit to low-double-digit range.
The agreement is an licensing deal, under which GO grants Roche a global, exclusive license for antibodies directed to an undisclosed cancer-specific target and commercialization of a new, glycotargeting bispecific antibody. GO’s focus is on glycoproteomics, which it is using to develop antibody-based cancer therapeutics. The company said its glycoprotein-targeting platform opens the possibility of new tumor-specific antigens that can help widen the therapeutic window for therapeutic modalities like T-cell bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates and CAR-T cells.
Currently, a handful of products in those classes are Food and Drug Administration-approved and marketed. Last year, the FDA approved two CAR-Ts for blood cancers, Novartis’ Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Gilead Sciences’ Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel). The first approved bispecific antibody was Amgen’s Blincyto (blinatumomab), which like Kymriah targets the CD19 antigen and is approved for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Seattle Genetics’ Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) is an approved ADC, used for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas.
While unable to disclose what antigens GO is targeting, CEO Constantine Theodoropulos said in a phone interview that the aim is to address the problem of off-target toxicities that occur with the different therapy types. “If you really look at it form a 30,000-foot view, they all have a common issue, which is adverse events, and those problems are really a function of target expression on healthy tissue in addition to the cancerous tissues,” he said.
The company’s website describes its process as identifying sites of O-linked glycosylation on a wide range of protein targets and then using the accessibility of the O-glycans at the plasma membrane to develop epitopes that are considered “hybrids” because they include a protein and an O-glycan structure. Glycosylation refers to the attachment of sugars to proteins and is O-linked when monosaccharides bind to the hydroxyl group of the amino acids serine or threonine.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Theodoropulos emphasized that with respect to CAR-Ts, he was referring to the cell therapies in the context of solid tumors, not the hematological tumors for which Kymriah and Yescarta are approved. Those products have shown incidence of cytokine release syndrome and neurological toxicity, serious and potentially fatal side effects that are generally thought to be related to their tumor-killing mechanisms of action. However, Theodoropulos cited potential side effects form solid tumor CAR-Ts like toxins in the liver that its platform is meant to address.
Photo: Nicol??s Mero??o, Getty Images
