LegoChem signs up Novimmune as latest ADC licensee
The deal – financial details of the deal not provided – will combine Novimmune’s antibody development capabilities with LegoChem’s ADC technology.
LegoChem’s technology – known as ConjuAll – is based on site-specific bio-conjugation method and a beta-glucuronide linker. The firm claims the approach improves ADC stability and allows for higher payloads.
Novimmune told us: "We think that the LegoChem technology has the potential to be best in class solving some of the weaknesses of the first generation ADC technologies, and they are a company that already has several collaborations with bigger companies."
The ADC in question is a candidate cancer treatment, although information on the specific therapeutic focus of the project was not provided.
The agreement comes a month after South Korea based LegoChem signed a research deal with Takeda, under which the firms will evaluate several ADC candidates.
It also follows a couple of months after LegoChem partnered with Nordic Nanovector to develop ADC candidates that target CD37, a protein antigen found on the surface of cancerous cells.
Licensing deal
LegoChem's partnership strategy began in 2015 when it agreed to grant China’s Fosun Pharma commercialization rights to a cancer targeting ADC that was also developed using the ConjuAll platform.
The deal (here in Korean) granted Fosun a license to the ADC and to the technology used to produce it.
Licensing is also key to LegoChem’s antibiotics business. In December the firm granted Chinese development, manufacturing and commercialization rights to LCB01-0371 - a next generation oxazolidinone antibiotic – to RMX Biopharma.
