Biohaven Ltd. and Merus N.V., have announced a research collaboration and license agreement to co-develop three novel bispecific antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), leveraging Merus’ Biclonics technology platform and Biohaven’s next-generation ADC conjugation and payload platform technologies.

Under the terms of the agreement, Biohaven is responsible for the preclinical ADC generation of three Merus bispecific antibodies under mutually agreed research plans. The agreement includes two Merus bispecific programs generated using the Biclonics platform, and one program under preclinical research by Merus. Each program is subject to mutual agreement for advancement to further development, with the parties then sharing subsequent external development costs and commercialization, if advanced.

“We’re excited to collaborate with Biohaven, leveraging their broad range of linker/payload and conjugation technologies, and expertise with the research and development of ADCs, to rapidly advance bispecific antibody candidate ADCs based on the Merus Biclonics platform,” said Peter B. Silverman, Chief Operating Officer of Merus. “We believe that the combination of our Biclonics technology, validated by the recent FDA approval of Bizengri and continued clinical success with petosemtamab, together with the Biohaven suite of ADC technologies, has the potential to generate new and differentiated bispecific therapies with greater potency and selectivity over currently available monoclonal ADC approaches.”

Brian Lestini, President, Oncology of Biohaven, added: “We believe this collaboration with Merus will accelerate our ability to create highly differentiated multispecific ADCs, leveraging Biohaven’s innovative conjugation and payload technologies to deliver optimized ADCs with the potential to significantly benefit patients across various cancer types through an enhanced efficacy and safety profile.”

Under the transaction, Merus will receive an upfront payment and license fee at ADC candidate nomination of the first program, with Merus to assume the preclinical bispecific antibody generation cost, and Biohaven to assume the preclinical ADC generation cost. Thereafter, upon mutual agreement to advance each program, the parties plan to share further development and commercialization costs.