Sanofi-aventis acquires world-wide license for ADC products

Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT) today announces that sanofi-aventis has acquired an exclusive world-wide license to one of OBT's internal preclinical antibody programs.

sanofi-aventis intends to use the licensed antibody, which is directed against a novel, proprietary target identified by OBT, to develop, manufacture and commercialize antibody drug conjugate (ADC) products for the treatment of cancer. ADC products comprise toxins attached to antibodies which form effective therapeutic products that attack tumor cells in a highly targeted manner.

Under the terms of the agreement, sanofi-aventis agreed to pay OBT an undisclosed upfront cash payment. OBT is eligible for development and regulatory milestone payments on the program, royalties on the worldwide products sales and will receive additional performance milestones.

"This is the most advanced antibody licensing deal that OBT has signed to date and I am delighted that the target and antibody capabilities that we have built have been recognized by a world leading pharmaceutical company such as sanofi-aventis," said Christian Rohlff, CEO of OBT. "Given their expertise and experience in cancer drug development, I am very pleased that a program from our broad preclinical pipeline will be developed by sanofi-aventis."

The initiative integrates OBT's expertise in cancer target and antibody discovery with the in-house antibody development capabilities of sanofi-aventis. A key component of OBT's expertise in cancer target discovery is the company's OGAP(R) proteomic database, which represents one of the world's largest proprietary human cancer cell-surface protein repositories combined with highly relevant genomic and clinical information derived from human blood and cancer tissue studies.

SOURCE Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT)