Pheon Therapeutics, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) specialist developing next generation ADCs for a wide range of hard-to-treat cancers, entered into an exclusive licence agreement with Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., a global biotech company focused on the discovery of novel antibody therapeutics. Under the terms of the agreement, Pheon will develop and commercialize an antibody developed using Biocytogen’s proprietary RenMice platforms. Biocytogen will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for development and commercial milestone payments as well as single-digit royalties on net sales.

The new agreement expands Pheon’s ADC pipeline which boasts first-in-class ADCs to meet significant unmet clinical needs in oncology. 

Biocytogen’s RenMice platforms feature the complete replacement of human antibody variable genes in situ. The platforms together with target knock-out strategy empower the generation of fully human antibodies with low immunogenicity, great diversity, species cross-reactivity, high affinity and good developability. 

Bertrand Damour, CEO of Pheon Therapeutics, said: “This license agreement represents a significant expansion of Pheon’s pipeline, and it enhances our ability to successfully develop the next generation of ADCs. Biocytogen is a fantastic partner with ground-breaking technology that is well suited to our needs. We look forward to working with them and helping to find powerful therapies that can address the significant unmet patient need in solid tumours across a broad range of hard-to-treat cancers.”  

Yuelei Shen, President and CEO of Biocytogen, said: “We are glad to collaborate with Pheon Therapeutics. Using RenMice, we have launched Project Integrum which aims to develop fully human therapeutic antibody molecules for 1000+ targets for the development of drugs in different modalities. The combination of our strengths in fully human antibody discovery with Pheon’s strengths in ADC technologies may accelerate the generation of differentiated novel therapeutics that can bring benefits to patients.”