Dive Brief:
- Biotech discovery company Adimab LLC has snagged a multi-target partnership with big pharma Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH focused on antibodies for a range of disease targets.
- Adimab will use its yeast-based discovery and optimization platform to identify antibodies against Boehringer's targets. Full financial terms haven't been disclosed, but Adimab will get an upfront payment and research funding.
- Boehringer has the option to an exclusive license to antibodies generated during the collaboration, and will make licensing and clinical milestone payments to Adimab, along with royalties on sales of any products that stem from the collaboration.
Dive Insight:
As with many biotechs, Adimab operates largely through collaborations with other drugmakers, and has entered into more than 50 partnerships in the past eight years, according to a statement. Six of those partnered programs progressed into the clinic during 2017.
Boehringer has also been quick to make deals as of late, with attention often on its early-stage pipeline. Many big pharma companies have struggled with the front end of their pipelines, and with this in mind, Boehringer inked a partnership with Peking University in China for medicines innovation across a range of areas of unmet medical need. In another deal looking at unmet need, the German drugmaker and Danish company Gubra are working to develop therapeutic peptides for cardiometabolic disease, including obesity.
Boehringer's collaborations have shown its therapeutic interests are wide-ranging, making it difficult to guess what direction its partnership with Adimab will go.
Deals with Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. and MiNA Therapeutics have focused on liver disease, while a recent partnership with GlaxoSmithKline plc spinout Autifony Therapeutics Ltd. focused on central nervous system programs. Last February, Boehringer also hooked up with Weill Cornell Medicine to develop approaches that could halt or even reverse lung tissue damage in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.