Roche has got in on the B7-H3 action, agreeing to $570 million in near-term payments to existing partner MediLink Therapeutics for an antibody-drug conjugate targeting the immune checkpoint protein.<\/p>\n
The ADC, dubbed YL201, has been developed with MediLink’s Tumor Microenvironment-Activatable LINker-payload (TMALIN) platform. The biotech has already taken the therapy into a pair of phase 2 studies in China for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.<\/p>\n
Early data from these trials have \u201cdemonstrated promising objective response rates and survival benefits\u201d in second-line SCLC patients, MediLink said in the Jan. 8 post-market release<\/a>.<\/p>\n In return for the rights to YL201 outside China, MediLink will receive upfront and potential near-term milestone payments that could reach a combined $570 million. The Thursday evening release also refers to \u201cadditional development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments\u201d tied to the program, but doesn\u2019t provide a figure.<\/p>\n Should YL201 make it to market, MediLink will also be entitled to tiered royalties on net sales of YL201 outside\u00a0of China.<\/p>\n Roche first began collaborating with MediLink back in January 2024 via a $1 billion biobucks deal<\/a> centered on\u00a0YL211, a mesenchymal epidermal transforming factor (c-MET) ADC under development for solid tumors.<\/p>\n \u201cOur deepening collaboration with MediLink on YL201 reflects Roche’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge innovation from around the globe to address unmet patient needs, particularly within oncology and lung cancer as one of our strategic priorities,\u201d Boris Za\u00eftra, head of corporate business development at Roche, said in the release.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are excited to combine MediLink’s and Roche’s expertise in ADCs with our well-established global development and commercial presence to bring this promising potential therapy option to patients,\u201d Za\u00eftra added.<\/p>\n Jiaqiang Cai, Ph.D., co-founder, co-CEO and chief scientific officer at MediLink, said YL201 had \u201cdemonstrated promising clinical data.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis agreement provides YL201, a key asset from our innovative TMALIN\u00a0platform, with the necessary worldwide reach and resources to potentially become a new treatment option, addressing critical unmet needs for patients with various solid tumors,\u201d Cai added.<\/p>\n B7-H3, an\u00a0immune checkpoint protein highly expressed on many cancer cells, is already the target of GSK and Hansoh Pharma\u2019s ADC risvutatug rezetecan<\/a>, which began a global phase 3 study in SCLC in the summer. Meanwhile, Daiichi Sankyo announced last month it had paused enrollment<\/a> in a phase 3 trial of its Merck & Co.-partnered B7-H3 ADC ifinatamab deruxtecan after an unexpected number of deaths from interstitial lung disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roche has got in on the B7-H3 action, agreeing to $570 million in near-term payments to existing partner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[405,1115,3772,9275,41515,134,9975,41967],"class_list":["post-81423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-antibody-drug-conjugates","tag-biotech","tag-deals","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-licensing-deals","tag-roche","tag-small-cell-lung-cancer","tag-solid-tumor"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116731038017940819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}