Genmab, a big biotech company, and ADC Therapeutics have entered biotech deals for the co-development of a new antibody-drug conjugate product combining Genmab’s HuMax-TAC antibody and ADC Therapeutics’ PBD-based warhead and linker technology.
The Companies have been conducting in vitro and in vivo studies as part of previous biotech deals, since 2012 to investigate different warhead and linker combinations with HuMax-TAC, and now have the product ready for pre-IND preclinical development.
The product will be developed for multiple cancer indications as part of the new biotech deals.
HuMax-TAC is a high-affinity fully human antibody targeting CD25, a therapeutic target with strong clinical validation.
CD25 is expressed on a variety of hematological tumors and shows limited expression on normal tissues, which makes it a very attractive target for antibody-payload approaches.
With HuMax-TAC-ADC, the biotech deals aim to develop a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate for the potential treatment of CD25-expressing lymphomas and leukemias.
Warheads & Linkers ADCs developed using ADC Therapeutics’ technology combine monoclonal antibodies specific to particular tumor targets with highly potent pyrrolobenzodiazepine based warheads developed by ADC Therapeutic’s partner Spirogen Limited.
These PBD warheads are joined to antibodies by linkers that release the PBD warhead in the targeted cancer cells.
This technology has attracted the attention of other biotechnology companies such as Genentech and Seattle Genetics.
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