Yingen Biotechnology announced on December 4th that it has reached an exclusive licensing agreement with multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for a potential best in class ADC drug DB-1324. According to the agreement, GSK will obtain exclusive global authorization outside of the China region to advance the research and commercialization process of the ADC drug.
According to the terms of the agreement, GSK will make a prepayment of $30 million and other pre exercise milestone payments to obtain exclusive authorization to promote DB-1324 research and commercialization worldwide, except for the China region. If GSK exercises its licensing rights, Yingen Biotechnology will charge an exercise fee and subsequent milestone payments at different stages of development, regulatory registration, and commercialization, up to a maximum of $975 million. After successful commercialization, GSK will pay different proportions of tiered royalty fees for global net sales outside of China and receive royalty fees from domestic net sales.
According to Yingen Biotechnology, DB-1324 is an innovative ADC molecule developed based on the company's unique and clinically validated Duality Immune Toxin Antibody Conjugates (DITAC) platform. At present, it is still in the preclinical development stage, and its research direction may focus on gastrointestinal (GI) cancers.
In addition, the ADC drug has the potential to be used in combination with multiple anti-tumor products from GSK, strategically supplementing GSK's anti-tumor product portfolio.