Amgen exercises commercial options
Amgen has decided to exercise its commercialisation options for both Genmab's HuMax-IL15 antibody programme and its IL15 receptor programme, while also expanding its agreement with Genmab to include a new antibody program on an additional disease target.
Amgen has decided to exercise its commercialisation options for both Genmab's HuMax-IL15 antibody programme and its IL15 receptor programme, while also expanding its agreement with Genmab to include a new antibody program on an additional disease target.
Under the terms of the expanded agreement, if products to all three targets are successfully commercialised and certain sales levels are achieved, Danish biotechnology company Genmab will be entitled to up to US$135.5m (€117.5m) in license fees and milestone payments. Genmab is also entitled to royalties on commercial sales instead of the profit sharing designated in the original agreement.
In connection with the option exercise, Genmab received the first milestone payment of $10m for products targeting the IL15 pathway. Amgen will be responsible for all future development costs for products targeting the IL15 pathway and Genmab will participate in the preclinical development of the new programme.
'HuMax-IL15 is an interesting product with the po-tential to treat a variety of inflammation diseases,' said Dr Roger M. Perlmutter, Amgen executive vice president, research and development. 'We are looking forward to continuing to work with Genmab in our expanded agreement.'