Sucampo and Numab sign drug discovery collaboration
Sucampo will have access to Numab’s proprietary technology for the discovery of high-affinity antibodies against selected targets
Sucampo Pharmaceuticals’ wholly owned subsidiary Sucampo AG and Swiss biotech company Numab have entered into a research and development collaboration that provides Sucampo with access to Numab’s proprietary technology for the discovery of high-affinity antibodies against certain selected targets. Sucampo will have exclusive commercial rights to any biologic products successfully developed and commercialised in the course of the collaboration.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sucampo will provide Numab with up to CHF5m (€4.1m) as collateral for a loan to Numab from a third party. Sucampo may name up to four targets against which Numab will use its proprietary technology to discover high-affinity antibodies and to develop these to an IND-ready stage.
Numab is eligible for FTE-based payments and discovery success-dependent fees. If a biologic is successfully developed, Numab and Sucampo may enter into a licence arrangement in which Numab will be entitled to clinical development milestone payments and increasing tiered royalties on net sales. Sucampo will be responsible for clinical development and will retain all commercial rights to any resulting biologic product.
Numab possesses a breakthrough antibody discovery technology that has been deliberately designed to approach complex integral membrane proteins such as GPCRs or ion channels, both major drug target classes that are not amenable to conventional antibody technologies.
‘This agreement is an opportunity to maximise our knowledge of a variety of targets that result in several large, underserved patient populations,’ said Dr Ryuji Ueno, chairman, cso and ceo of Sucampo. ‘By applying Numab’s antibody technology to these targets, we plan to develop biologic products with a different mechanism of action that will be complementary to the prostone-based compounds we now have in development.’
