December 22, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Munich, Germany-based Medigene AG announced yesterday that it had sold its spinoff company, Catherex, Inc., to Amgen .
Medigene, as primary Catherex shareholder, will receive about 40 percent of the payments from Amgen. Catherex shareholders will receive an upfront payment of $10.5 million from Amgen, as well as milestone payments based on Amgen’s Imlygic, formerly T-Vec. Also, royalty payments on Imlygic will be paid until the end of 2020. Imlygic was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Oct. 2015 for the treatment of advanced, metastatic melanoma. It was also recently approved in the European Union.
“With this transaction we have achieved our goal to profitably realize the previous investments made in Catherex,” said Peter Llewellyn-Davies, Medigene AG’s chief financial officer, chief operating officer and managing director, in a statement. “The upfront and milestone payments and the expected cash inflow of regular royalty payments from Amgen is part of our strategy to tap additional financial resources for the ongoing clinical development programs of our innovative immunotherapies.”
Catherex is located in Philadelphia. In April 2010, Medigene spun off the company with the development of a cancer-killing herpes simplex virus (oHSV). At that time Medigene received a 40 percent stake in the company. In 2014, Catherex spun off some of its patents and research-and-development programs into a company called Aettis Inc. Medigene holds a 39 percent stake in Aettis.
Amgen, which for the most part has stayed out of this year’s merger-and-acquisitions frenzy, indicated in November that they were evaluating acquisition targets in the $10 billion range and in companies that have drugs close to market. The Catherex buy is well shy of the $10 billion range, although it would seem to strengthen Amgen’s work in the immuno-oncology arena. Catherex is privately-owned, so financial data is not available.
Imlygic (taalimogene laherparepvec) was approved by the FDA in October. It is a genetically modified herpes simplex virus type 1 that is engineered to replicate within tumors and manufacture a protein called granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), which causes the cells to rupture, thus releasing tumor-derived antigen. Then, along with GM-CSF, it stimulates an anti-tumor immune response.
“This sale of an equity stake to Amgen enables Medigene to commercialize further assets derived from our portfolio,” said Frank Mathias, chief executive officer of Medigene AG and president of Medigene, Inc., in a statement. “In addition to our recent announcement regarding the transfer of EndoTAG, this step supports Medigene’s focus on immunotherapy as our core business.”
On Dec. 17, Medigene inked a deal with Taiwan-based SynCore Biotechnology Co., Ltd. to sell its EndoTAG platform to SynCore, which replaced and ended a May 2013 license agreement. In addition to 6.3 million euros in licensing payments and proceeds, Medigene received a payment of 5 million euros that will be paid in five annual installments.
EndoTag is a composition of neutral and positive lipids. These lipids can be loaded with the cytostatic drug Paclitaxel, which builds the drug candidate EndoTag-1. EndoTag-1 works to attack the blood supply to tumor cells without affecting healthy endothelial tissues.
