Korea’s Celltrion is continuing to think bigger than biosmilars, this time securing the option to use TriOar’s antibody platform in a deal potentially worth more than $350 million.
Under today’s agreement, Celltrion has the option to use TriOar's tumor-microenvironment-selective activation platform (TROCAD) for up to six targets. TriOar, which is also based in Korea, touts TROCAD as a “unique antibody platform that can improve the therapeutic index of antibody-based therapies.”
To access the tech, Celltrion will initially have to pay a fee of 1 billion South Korean won ($680,000). If Celltrion then uses up its full allocation of six targets, it could be liable to hand TriOar a combined total of $230.4 million in developmental milestones payments as well as $124.7 million in sales milestones if every drug makes it to market.
In addition, TriOar could see tiered royalties of somewhere between 2% and 3.5% from sales, according to a filing with the Korean stock exchange.
Today’s deal continues a new chapter for Celltrion, which until this month had specialized almost exclusively in biosimilars. Earlier in November, Celltrion penned a deal worth more than $740 million biobucks for two preclinical autoimmune assets from U.S. biotech Kaigene. They included a next-generation FcRn inhibitor Kaigene has hailed as having a “novel antibody structure, offering extended durability and best-in-class potential compared with existing therapies.”
As well as TROCAD, TriOar has another system in development called TROSIG, which uses linker-toxins to enhance the drug stability and efficacy of antibody-drug conjugates. The Daejeon, South Korea-based company secured a 22.5 billion won ($15 million) series B round in July, which the biotech will use to “accelerate the preclinical and clinical entry of next-generation ADC drug candidates.”