Novartis, Aduro: Up-to-$750M Cancer Immunotherapy Collaboration Mon, 03/30/2015 - 12:52pm Stephanie Guzowski, Editor Novartis is planning to boost its cancer immunotherapy pipeline with a collaboration with California-based Aduro Biotech worth up to $750 million. The partnership is focused on the development of cancer immunotherapies based on Aduro's STING (Stimulator of Interferon Genes) technology, a next-generation method to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer. Novartis will pay $200 million upfront for rights to the program, along with an initial equity investment of $25 million. Aduro could receive up to an additional $500 million in payments tied to development milestones from Novartis, as well as a commitment for another $25 million investment from Novartis at a future date. Aduro's agreement with Novartis covers research, development and commercialization of cyclic dinucleotide (CDN)-based oncology therapies. Novartis will lead worldwide commercialization for any drug projects developed, while Aduro will focus on U.S. commercialization. "We are delighted to collaborate with Aduro," Novartis' Mark C. Fishman, M.D., president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said in a statement. "We believe this target is among the most exciting in oncology today, the drug candidate to be of the highest quality, and the talent of our new colleagues from Aduro to be fantastic. We anticipate many clinical opportunities will be explored with the CDN approach, both directly and in combination with other agents." Novartis has been active in the development of cancer immunotherapies, including chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) drug CTL019, which is in mid-stage Phase 2 clinical trials. Said Aduro Chief Scientific Officer Thomas W. Dubensky, Jr., Ph.D. in a statement, "We look forward to collaborating with Novartis to begin a Phase 1 clinical trial with our first novel immune-oncology candidate."
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