Iksuda Therapeutics, the developer of antibody drug conjugates with raised therapeutic index, has expanded its research collaboration and license agreement with LegoChem Biosciences to explore additional ADC programmes leveraging the company’s proprietary ADC platform technology.
Under the expanded agreement, Iksuda has been granted rights for three additional targets, bringing its total number of potential ADC programmes using LCB’s ADC platform technologies to six. Iksuda also gains access to LCB’s DNA-modifying payload, supplementing its proprietary tumour-activated DNA toxins which were included in last year’s license agreement.
Dr Dave Simpson, CEO, Iksuda Therapeutics, said: “During a successful partnership since signing the multi-target License Agreement last year, Iksuda has nominated two ADC candidates which leverage the differentiated advantages of LCBs prodrug payload technology, with preclinical development underway. We are excited to expand our research into next generation best-in-class ADCs through this wider arrangement with LCB which includes a new payload. We anticipate the discovery of additional candidates for Iksuda’s growing ADC pipeline as a result of this agreement.”
Dr Yong-Zu Kim, CEO and President of LCB, said: “We have built a strong partnership with Iksuda through the multi-target ADC platform license and LCB73 (CD19 ADC) product license agreements, completed last April and May respectively. Our partnership has validated the superiority of LCB’s ADC platform technology and the competitive potential of IKS03 (formerly known as LCB73) as an innovative ADC drug. This validation has led to the execution of this expanded license agreement. We will continue to cooperate closely with Iksuda to accelerate the advancement of all LCB-related ADC candidates into clinic.”
Iksuda recently announced that it has completed a $47 million financing round, co-led by Celltrion, Mirae Asset Capital and its subsidiaries, and Premier Partners to support the advancement of its lead ADC assets, including IKS03, and the expansion of its payload platform technologies. This expanded agreement with LCB is hoped to enable R&D into additional classes of payload, adding to Iksuda’s proprietary protein alkylating (ProAlk) tumour-activated payload platform, licensed from Göttingen University.
