Novartis Inks $250 Million Alliance with Aduro

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Novartis announced that it entered into a multiyear alliance with Aduro Biotech to develop cancer immunotherapies, offering up to $250 million in upfront payments and equity investments.

 

Novartis announced on March 30, 2015 that it entered into a multiyear alliance with Aduro Biotech to discover and develop next-generation cancer immunotherapies. As part of the agreement, a new immuno-oncology research group will be formed, and research will focus on immunotherapies that target the STING (stimulator of interferon genes) pathway. Novartis will make an upfront payment of $200 million to Aduro and an initial equity investment in the company equaling $25 million. A commitment of an additional $25 million equity investment was also announced as part of the agreement, but will be paid at a future date. 

According to Aduro Biotech’s website, the company is “developing a family of proprietary derivatives of STING-modulating [cyclic dinucleotides] CDNs.” This signaling pathway initiates broad innate and adaptive immune responses in tumors, according to the press release. The alliance will broaden Novartis’ existing immunotherapy portfolio, which includes CTL019, a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) therapy that received a Breakthrough Therapy designation from FDA in July 2014 and experienced positive results from a study completed by the University of Pennsylvania and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in October 2014. 

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"Immunotherapy is one of the exciting frontiers in oncology today. Current approaches with checkpoint inhibitors and T-cell modulation are potent but only in select tumor types. STING agonists have the potential to fully activate the immune system to attack a broader range of tumors,” said Mark Fishman, president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, in a press release. “Under Glenn Dranoff's leadership, our new immuno-oncology research group will aggressively drive our current programs to the clinic and explore new directions for both mono and combination therapies.

Source: Novartis