Roche has headed back to China to pen a licensing deal worth more than $1 billion biobucks for the rights to a clinical-stage bispecific antibody for respiratory diseases.<\/p>\n
The asset in question, dubbed QX031N, has been developed by Qyuns Therapeutics to target both human thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) and human interleukin-33 (IL-33).<\/p>\n
Both the TSLP and IL-33 proteins are released in the body in response to allergens, viruses, pollution and mechanical stimuli, Qyuns explained in a short release<\/a>. The Chinese biopharma hopes this means QX031N can become a \u201cbest-in-disease\u201d therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.<\/p>\n Roche\u2019s hopes of getting its COPD therapy astegolimab to regulators this year took a hit after the anti-ST2 monoclonal antibody (mAB) failed to reduce flare-ups<\/a> in a phase 3 study.<\/p>\n In return for the global rights to QX031N, Roche is handing over $75 million upfront to Qyuns, with potentially $995 million to follow in development, regulatory and commercialization milestones, on top of tiered royalties should the antibody make it to market.<\/p>\n Qyuns’ portfolio is based on its rabbit mAB development platform.<\/p>\n \u201cMany studies have shown that the unique features of B-cell ontogeny and antibody repertoire make rabbits a valuable source for antibodies that have high affinity and specificity, which could potentially translate into strong bioactivity, and are easier to humanize, leading to lower risk of immunogenicity,\u201d the Shanghai-based company explains on its website.<\/p>\n Qyuns\u2019 pipeline includes Sailexin<\/a>, a biosimilar of Johnson & Johnson\u2019s inflammatory med Stelara that is approved in China. The biopharma also has a range of therapies in the clinic, including an anti-IL-4R\u03b1 mAB being evaluated for various inflammatory conditions as well as an IL-17A inhibitor in trials for ankylosing spondylitis.<\/p>\n Qyuns has previously caught the attention of fellow Chinese company Hansoh Pharma, which last year bought the Chinese rights<\/a> to Qyuns\u2019 phase 2-stage IL-23p19\u00a0inhibitor for psoriasis and Crohn\u2019s disease. Roche signed its own deal <\/a>with Hansoh earlier this month to get its hands on a CDH17-targeted antibody-drug conjugate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roche has headed back to China to pen a licensing deal worth more than $1 billion biobucks for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[24027,42150,1115,6114,351,14711,3772,9275,41515,14717,3777,134],"class_list":["post-81485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-asthma","tag-biobucks","tag-biotech","tag-bispecific-antibodies","tag-china","tag-copd","tag-deals","tag-fierce-biotech-homepage","tag-licensing-deals","tag-monoclonal-antibody","tag-respiratory-diseases","tag-roche"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116731415384838861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81485","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=81485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}