Bolstering Cancer Strategy, German Biotech BioNTech and Eli Lilly Ink $360 Million Research Deal
May 12, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech announced yesterday that it had signed a research collaboration agreement with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company . The deal, which starts with a $30 million signing fee, will focus on discovering novel cancer immunotherapies.
In addition, Lilly is investing another $30 million equity investment in Cell & Gene Therapies GmbH, a subsidiary of BioNTech. The subsidiary specializes in research and development of TCR and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immunotherapeutics. CAR T-cell immunotherapy has great potential in treating people with B cell cancers, or lymphomas.
Regulatory and developmental milestones could reach over $300 million. BioNTech is also eligible for tiered double-digit royalty payments should any of the products hit the market.
“In the past few years, we’ve seen some amazing breakthroughs in immuno-oncology; however, we believe these are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Greg Plowman, vice president of Lilly Oncology Research in a statement. “Lilly’s partnership with BioNTech represents the next wave of cancer immunotherapy and is focused on the identification of functional T cell receptors that can be used to redirect a patient’s natural immune system to fight cancer.”
BioNTech and Cell & Gene Therapies’ approaches are to engineer T-cell receptors and CAR to stimulate the body’s immune system to directly attack cancer cells. Other company’s using this approach are the U.K’s Adaptimmune Ltd., Juno Therapeutics and Kite Pharma, Inc. .
Adaptimmune, in fact, announced the close of its initial public offering yesterday. Proceeds from the offering hit about $175.7 million.
This agreement between Lilly and BioNTech is consistent with Lilly’s strategic partnership approach to both immuno-oncology and emerging markets. In March, Lilly inked an alliance with China-based Innovent Biologics. Lilly will provide a cMet monoclonal antibody gene for non-small cell lung cancer, and Innovent will provide a CD-20 monoclonal antibody for blood cancers.
Lilly also recently received approval in the U.S. for Cyramza (ramucirumab) for treatment for gastric cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and colorectal cancer. This and other broadening of Lilly’s product approvals is applauded by analysts, who note the company is under pressure because of the patent cliff for some of its products like Cymbalta and Evista.
“We’re an inch deep and a mile wide in some markets,” said Chito Zulueta, president of emerging markets at Eli Lilly in a statement, “and so in some cases we use strategic partnerships across the value chain.”
On the basis of yesterday’s news and insider trading activity, primarily by major shareholder Lilly Endowment sales of 195,000 shares on Friday, analysts at Credit Suisse repeated a “neutral” rating. Bank of America also reiterated a “neutral” rating. The Street analysts cited “buy” and Citigroup analysts upgraded Lilly from “neutral” to “buy.”
Of the new agreement, Ugur Sahin, chief executive officer of BioNTech said in a statement, “This alliance is in line with our strategy to collaborate with companies that have a similar fascination, drive and commitment in developing and commercializing truly innovative and disruptive immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.”