While BioNTech is still keeping one foot in the COVID-19 arena that made its name, the German company has made a concerted push toward treating cancer in recent months.
That effort took another leap forward Monday as the biotech announced a licensing deal with OncoC4, taking on the latter’s mid-stage CTLA-4-targeting monoclonal antibody, ONC-392, for $200 million in upfront cash. The exclusive licensing and collaboration agreement also includes an undisclosed amount of commercial and clinical milestones.
The deal is evidence of BioNTech’s fervor to keep its foot on the clinical gas pedal, particularly in cancer. ONC-392 is currently being assessed in a phase 1/2 trial in patients with solid tumors as both a monotherapy and combination treatment alongside Merck & Co.’s blockbuster Keytruda. Another phase 2 trial is looking at the same combo treatment in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
The data accrued from the ongoing phase 1/2 trial supports the launch of a phase 3 trial testing ONC-392 as a monotherapy in patients with PD-L1-resistant non-small cell lung cancer, BioNTech said in the release.
The company believes the newly-acquired antibody has a “differentiated safety profile,” CEO Ugur Sahin, M.D., said. “Despite being a prime target for more than a decade, we believe that targeting CTLA-4 has not reached its full potential in cancer immunotherapy.”
The knock on the target in the past has been a significant level of immune-related adverse events. One systemic review from 2015 concluded that the tradeoff of anti-CTLA4 antibodies was “atypical immune toxicity.”
ONC-392 slots into an ever-growing cancer pipeline for BioNTech, which includes nearly two dozen clinical-stage assets, five of which are antibodies. Four of the antibodies are part of a collaboration with Genmab, including phase 2 BNT311 currently targeting patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
Much of the star power still rests with BioNTech’s cancer vaccine research, particularly after the U.K. government partnered with the company to deliver 10,000 personalized therapies by 2030. As part of the agreement, BioNTech will build a new R&D hub in the country, expanding its European footprint.