GlycoT Therapeutics Grants Sublicense of Glycoengineering Technology to Daiichi Sankyo

BALTIMORE, Sept. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GlycoT Therapeutics LLC, a UM Ventures start-up company based on intellectual property (IP) developed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), has executed a sublicense agreement for its glycoengineering technology with Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited (Daiichi Sankyo; www.daiichisankyo.com). The agreement grants Daiichi Sankyo worldwide and non-exclusive rights to IP that GlycoT currently licenses from UMB and UMCP, and includes an undisclosed upfront payment, annual fees, and adequate royalties of sales to GlycoT.

GlycoT’s enzymatic glycoengineering technology provides a platform to precisely change and modify the sugars on antibodies. Daiichi Sankyo plans to use this cutting-edge technology to prepare new drug candidates.

“We are very excited to see the growing potential for GlycoT’s glycoengineering technology,” said Phil Robilotto, DO, MBA, associate vice president of UMB’s Office of Technology Transfer and director of UM Ventures, which is UMB and UMCP’s joint technology transfer initiative. “This is a great example of how university innovators continue to fuel therapeutic development across the globe.”

Lai-Xi Wang, PhD, Founder and President of GlycoT Therapeutics and UMCP Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, developed the technologies that are the basis for the GlycoT/Daiichi Sankyo license agreement in his lab, first at UMB and later at UMCP.

“We are pleased to provide the opportunity for Daiichi Sankyo to use this technology,” said Dr. Wang. “We believe our technology has the potential to open new avenues for developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of human diseases.”

About GlycoT Therapeutics LLC
GlycoT Therapeutics aims to apply its innovative and proprietary chemoenzymatic glycosylation technology for glycoengineering of therapeutic proteins such as monoclonal antibodies to improve their therapeutic efficacy. For more information, visit www.glycot.com.

About UM Ventures
UM Ventures, the joint technology transfer initiative of University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), commercializes University of Maryland’s breakthrough discoveries, fueling the creation of innovative start-up companies and attracting industry leaders and entrepreneurs to the universities. Researchers at UMB and UMCP have created hundreds of life science innovations that are available for licensing. Our Discovery Portfolio offers a mix of cutting-edge technologies, including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, and software that promise to make a quantifiable impact on human health and the environment. The internationally-recognized genomics, cancer, vaccine, stem cell, pharmaceutical and bioengineering research underway at the University of Maryland provides a robust pipeline of more than 250 new innovations each year. Visit our portfolio at umventures.org.

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SOURCE University of Maryland Ventures