Business
Swiss drugmarker Novartis is partnering up with California-based Aduro Biotech for cancer research. The move comes as the privately owned California-based biotech group prepares for a $86 million initial public offering (IPO), details of which were announced earlier this month, reports Reuters. Novartis will make an upfront payment of $200 million and Aduro could be eligible for a further $500 million if drug projects pan out. In addition, Novartis is making an initial equity investment in Aduro of $25 million, with a commitment for another $25 million at a future date, the two companies said on Monday.
The move gives Novartis access to Aduro's experimental STING (Stimulator of Interferon Genes) technology, which is a next-generation method to harness the body's immune system to combat cancer. In a further sign of its commitment to cancer immunotherapy, Novartis also launched an immuno-oncology research group led by Glenn Dranoff, a leading cancer vaccine expert from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The Basel-based group is already working on a number of immunotherapies to fight cancer, including chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART), where its CTL019 product is in mid-stage Phase II clinical trials and is viewed as a potential market leader.
Aduro will have the right to market and sell the products which have been developed from this partnership in US. Novartis will be selling the products in other parts of the world, according to Business Finance News. Both the companies will be operating a profit sharing model, in which all the profits made in US, Japan and Europe will be shared among both the companies. For sales in other regions of the world, Aduro will be paid a royalty by Novartis.
The deal show the growing potential of the idea of immuno oncology, i.e. fighting of the disease through the body’s immune system. Other drug makers like Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Agenus Inc’s have also made significant investments in the same field. Aduro’s CEO Stephen T. Isaacs said that they are very happy to have made the deal with Novartis because of their committing and cooperative approach. He believes them to be the perfect partner, as they not only have major expertise in the field of oncology but also showed interest in their CDN technology and will provide them with valuable support and knowledge, which will be essential in development of the treatments.
