Berkeley's Aduro Biotech Strikes $817 Million Lung Cancer Pact With Janssen Biotech Inc.

October 16, 2014

By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Scrappy Berkeley firm Aduro Biotech just inked a $30 million deal with the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center in California to help it develop its nascent lung cancer therapies, the company announced Thursday.

Under the terms of the pact, Janssen Biotech Inc. , part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson , will receive an exclusive, worldwide license to several of the cancer drugs in Aduro’s LADD immunotherapy platform

Aduro will receive a $30 million up front and as much as $817 million as it hits development, regulatory and commercialization milestones payments.

The company’s primary focus is experimental therapies using Listeria bacteria, which they genetically modify with disease-specific antigens. It had an earlier, existing partnership with Johnson & Johnson, but the larger company appears to be doubling down on the company as research evolves.

Aduro lauded the agreement as a major step forward for the tiny biotech. The deal is still subject to clearance by American antitrust authorities under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

“Since our initial agreement with Janssen in May of this year for new immunotherapies for prostate cancer, they have been terrific partners and we’ve established a strong collaboration focused on advancing our technologies forward in their licensed indications,” said Stephen Isaacs, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Aduro, in a statement. “We believe our LADD technology also offers tremendous promise as a potential treatment for lung cancer and we are pleased to expand our relationship with Janssen, a company with significant experience and resources focused in both lung and prostate cancer.”

Isaacs said Aduro continues to make progress with a broad array of immunotherapy platforms in a number of other oncology indications, including pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma and glioblastoma.