December 28, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Lexington, Mass.-based Agenus Inc. announced last week that it was acquiring PhosImmune for $9.9 million, with an additional $35 million in milestone payments.
Agenus focuses on immuno-oncology. It has an AutoSynVax vaccine program that targets patient-specific tumor neoantigens.
PhosImmune has numerous neoantigen assets. PhosImmune’s portfolio includes phosphopeptide tumor targets (PTTs), which are protein fragments expressed in cancer cells. As a result, they light up the immune system, providing potential targets for onco-immuno therapeutics.
“PhosImmune’s groundbreaking neoantigen assets significantly expand Agenus’s current efforts, and present exciting near-term opportunities for new products and partnerships,” said Garo Armen, Agenus’s chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement. “This acquisition expands our immuno-oncology pipeline and strengthens our neoantigen capabilities to enable the development of best-in-class cancer vaccines and other novel therapies.”
PhosImmune’s scientific founders, Donald Hunt and Vic Engelhard, of the University of Virginia, and Mark Cobbold, of Massachusetts General Hospital, have identified numerous proprietary, tumor-specific PTTs, which are associated with a number of different cancer types.
“By acquiring PhosImmune, we are accessing a capability with transformational potential for both patient-specific and off-the-shelf cancer vaccine products,” said Robert Stein, Agenus’s chief scientific officer and Head of R&D, in a statement. “In addition, our entire portfolio will benefit from the world-class peptide analytics expertise of PhosImmune’s founders. We believe there are a number of near-term opportunities to advance potentially powerful cancer therapies into the clinic that build on and leverage the ongoing work at Agenus.”
On Nov. 4, Agenus announced a set of three different deals. They included an agreement to acquire XOMA Corporation ’s antibody pilot plant manufacturing facility, the licensing of IONTAS’s phage display library, and a deal for cell line development technology with Selexis. “These new capabilities,” the company stated, “in combination with Agenus’s Retrocyte Display and SECANT yeast display platforms, will result in a broad, vertically integrated and highly productive in-vitro discovery and production platform.”
“We look forward to working with the team currently at the XOMA facility and welcoming them to Agenus,” said Armen in a statement. “With these transactions, we will have assembled one of the most comprehensive and integrated capabilities in the industry. These capabilities provide us with unique advantages in an era where Quality, efficiencies and speed of development and commercialization are paramount to successfully developing a new generation of biopharmaceutical products. Our goal is to bring highly effective novel therapies to patients while addressing the burden of rising healthcare costs.”
Agenus has had its ups and downs this year. Shares traded for $4.72 on Mar. 26, rose to a year high of $9.78 on June 17, then dropped to $4.58 on Sept. 28. Shares drifted for a while before dropping to $3.88 on Dec. 14. Shares are currently trading for $4.73.
