By Lisa LaMotta
“The Pink Sheet” DAILY
AnaptysBio has gained another big partner in Celgene for its antibody discovery platform; bringing Celgene further into biologics.
Privately held AnaptysBio Inc. has been racking up partnerships with mid- and large-sized pharmaceutical companies as it continues to work on developing its own internal pipeline. The San Diego-based company announced April 9 that it has landed its fourth major partner for its antibody discovery platform in Celgene Corp.
While the terms of the deal were undisclosed, Anaptys revealed that it will receive an upfront payment as well as clinical milestones and sales royalties on any products that result from the collaboration. Celgene is looking to Anaptys to generate therapeutic antibodies to oncology and inflammation-related targets.
Like Anaptys’ previous deals, Celgene will propose the targets and Anaptys is responsible for generating the antibodies until a lead candidate is chosen – a process that usually lasts between six and twelve months. From there, the pharma partners are responsible for both preclinical and clinical development, as well as commercialization. The deal will be Celgene’s first foray into antibody development, although it has several fusion proteins (which incorporate antibody fragments) in development.
“Pharma has been very interested in leveraging our technology for developing antibodies that fit into their pipeline,” said Anaptys president and CEO Hamza Suria. “Celgene was pretty excited about our technology platform based upon the validating data we were able to show them, as well as our other partners. They understood that we could help them move into antibodies rapidly and deliver competently,” he added.
Since its inception in 2006, the biotech also has formed collaborations with Merck & Co. Inc., Roche and Novartis AG, which are structured similarly to the Celgene deal (“Deals Of The Week: Novartis/Debiopharm, Biovail/Alexza, Merck/AnaptysBio” — “The Pink Sheet,” Feb. 15, 2010). Through its initial investor, Avalon Ventures, the company raised $3 million in a Series A. In late 2007, it raised a $34 million Series B led by Novo AS, with Avalon, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Numenor Ventures and WS Investment Company.
Novel Antibody Technology
AnaptysBio’s technology platform exploits the natural biological process by which antibodies are generated called somatic hypermutation (SHM). As every platform company in the space insists, AnaptysBio argues that its technology apparently can create antibodies with different antigen-binding specificities and better binding affinities.
The platform incorporates recombinant libraries of fully human antibody genes, a vector system using SHM technology to evolve the antibodies, and a methodology to select optimized antibody candidates that meet certain design criteria established by AnaptysBio or its partners. Suria said that beginning with the fully human antibody library and incorporating SHM sets the biotech’s platform apart from others doing work in the field.
The advantages of the company’s platform include the generation of antibodies that are functional and stable, as they are evolved in a “human-like” process, Suria said. Since Anaptys does its work in vitro, Suria says that the platform is not subject to the limitations of in vivo techniques, like mouse immunization, which generally produce a limited set of antibodies because they are constrained by the biases of the organism’s own immune system.
Unlike antibody phage-display libraries, which are limited to a static number of antibody possibilities and can often be unstable, Anaptys’ libraries are dynamic and evolved to create antibodies that meet explicit technical specifications.
Within AnaptysBio’s own pipeline is an anti-IL17 antibody for treatment of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. The company also is working on an immunotherapy program, as well as a compound for muscle-wasting disorders. Suria said that the biotech likely will seek a partner for at least one of these compounds prior to it entering the clinic, but hopes to develop one of the programs itself.
While antibody therapeutics have been around for the last three decades, they did not start gaining attention until compounds like Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade (infliximab) and Abbott Laboratories Inc. ’s Humira (adalimumab) became multi-billion dollar blockbusters. Now, small antibody start-ups are aggressively making deals and getting acquired. Acquisitions of note in the field include Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s 2010 acquisition of ZymoGenetics Inc. for $840.6 million [See Deal] and the more recent acquisition of Micromet Inc. for $1 billion by Amgen Inc. that closed in March [See Deal].
“There have been some very nice exits for antibody companies,” said Suria. “Valuations reflect the belief that antibodies will continue to be the fastest-growing area in biologics.”
Despite antibodies currently being in vogue, platform technologies tend to demand a smaller upfront value from large pharmaceutical companies until the technology can be validated by a successful compound in the clinic. The upfront payments commanded by early-stage platforms have dropped in recent years from an average of $50 million in 2007 to $30 million in 2010. Yet, cash from these deals – no matter how little – can allow a venture-backed biotech to bring in money without further dilution to investors.