Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. announces an antibody evaluation and option agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. The agreement provides Gilead access to Biocytogen’s extensive fully human antibody library generated against a wide range of therapeutic targets. Over a three-year nomination period, Gilead will nominate targets of interest and evaluate the corresponding antibodies, with the option to acquire selected antibodies for worldwide therapeutic development.
Under the terms of the agreement, Biocytogen will receive a payment to enable Gilead’s evaluation of certain antibodies directed to a given nominated target. Biocytogen is eligible to receive option exercise fees along with development, regulatory and sales milestone payments for each selected antibody against the nominated targets, as well as single-digit royalties on net sales.
Dr. Yuelei Shen, President and CEO of Biocytogen, said, “We are thrilled to collaborate with Gilead, a partner renowned for their drug development and commercialization expertise. Our extensive library of RenMice®-derived, fully human antibodies could serve as an important resource for Gilead to accelerate development of multiple novel antibody-based therapeutics to treat a variety of diseases. We are committed to supporting Gilead as well as our other partners in their drug development endeavors to benefit patients.”
Biocytogen’s antibody library was generated using a series of proprietary RenMice® platforms, which were genetically engineered to accelerate the development of novel antibody-based therapeutics. RenMabTM mice carry the entire human antibody variable region repertoire, and can generate fully human antibodies with high diversity, low immunogenicity, outstanding specificity and affinity, and exhibit excellent developability properties. Second-generation RenLite® and RenNano® models, which generate common light chain antibodies and heavy-chain-only antibodies, respectively, further facilitate generation of fully human multi-specific antibodies or nanobodies. RenMice have also been engineered to lack specific drug targets; these targeted knockout platforms can generate antibodies with enhanced sequence and epitope diversity. This platform increases the likelihood of discovering novel species cross-reactive antibodies to facilitate downstream in vivo screening and identification of differentiated antibody candidates. A library featuring available antibody sequences along with characterization data is ready for immediate evaluation and partnership opportunities.
Biocytogen is a global biotechnology company that drives the research and development of novel antibody-based drugs with innovative technologies. Founded on gene editing technology, Biocytogen leverages genetically engineered proprietary RenMice® (RenMabTM/RenLite®/RenNano®/RenTCR-mimicTM) platforms for fully human monoclonal/bispecific/multispecific antibody discovery, bispecific antibody-drug conjugate discovery, nanobody discovery and TCR-mimic antibody discovery, and has established an off-the-shelf library of >400,000 fully human antibody sequences against approximately 1000 targets for worldwide collaboration. As of June 30, 2023, 50 therapeutic antibody and multiple clinical asset co-development/out-licensing/transfer agreements and 42 target-nominated RenMice® licensing projects have been established around the globe, including several partnerships with multinational pharmaceutical companies (MNCs). Biocytogen pioneered the generation of drug target knock-in humanized models for preclinical research, and currently provides a few thousand off-the-shelf animal and cell models under the company’s sub-brand, BioMiceTM, along with preclinical pharmacology and gene-editing services for clients worldwide. Headquartered in Beijing, Biocytogen has branches in China (Haimen Jiangsu, Shanghai), USA (Boston, San Francisco), and Germany (Heidelberg).
SOURCE: Businesswire