Genmab, a well-known Danish antibody biotech, is partnering with Revitope Oncology on T cell engagers, a type of cancer medicine that has become more popular this year and is now being tested in autoimmune diseases.
Genmab will pay the Boston-based startup $9 million to kick off the pact and could dish out up to $600 million if it acts on all three target options, Revitope exclusively told
Endpoints News
. The partners will conduct research for solid tumors over multiple years.
Revitope has previously signed collaborations with
Johnson & Johnson
and
Junshi Biosciences
, which invested in the company. Revitope COO Mark Clement told Endpoints the company met the targets of those partnerships but declined to say whether they’re still ongoing.
T cell engagers have come to the fore in dealmaking and funding this year. Amgen’s
Imdelltra
was approved in May. Merck acquired
Harpoon Therapeutics
for $680 million in January.
Clasp Therapeutics
made a $150 million debut in March, while
Candid Therapeutics
launched with $370 million last month. Candid is taking its T cell engagers into the autoimmune field, an area that Revitope could also explore with its new funding, Clement said.
That said, one of the problems for T cell engagers being tested in solid tumors is on-target, off-tumor toxicity, according to Revitope CSO Werner Meier. To address that issue, Revitope is creating dual antigen-binding medicines.
“Bringing those two components that it requires — [antigens] A and B — and the functional assembly on the cell surface gives us the opportunity to actually create T cell engagers that enlarge the therapeutic window that we’ve seen,” Meier said.
The company could ink more partnerships as it’s already in discussions with other companies, Clement said. Revitope’s lead internal candidate, called REV-403, goes after EGFR and PD-L1, and it will soon enter GLP toxicology studies, according to Meier.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct that Revitope’s current science is not based on research out of the University of Birmingham. The company no longer uses that platform for its current work.