Demonstrating once again that innovative antibody technology is smoking hot, Genmab will pocket an upfront fee of more than $10 million in exchange for using its platform to develop new CNS therapeutics for Lundbeck as the Danish biotech fashions a new R&D strategy that relies heavily on outside development partners.
Genmab stands to gain $53 million in milestones in the deal that calls on the biotech to develop antibodies for the CNS targets identified by Lundbeck. For its part, Lundbeck will fund the development of antibodies that can do the kind of therapeutic work that small molecules can't accomplish for brain diseases. It will handle the development work on the programs it chooses while Genmab will have the right to launch development programs for non-CNS indications.
Just last month Lundbeck announced that it would lay off 50 people in its R&D operations as it turned to outside collaborators to zero in on promising disease-modifying therapies. Like other developers, Lundbeck wants access to the best technologies for preclinical candidate identification. Money once dedicated to salaries is being freed up for new pacts.
"The new partnership follows Lundbeck's new R&D strategy to ensure we have the most efficient platform for the future discovery and development of drugs that will be able to help and treat biologically defined groups of patients with brain diseases," says Peter Høngaard Andersen, Lundbeck's head of research. "It is this type of drugs we expect will be in demand in the future".
- check out the Lundbeck release for more info
- here's the Reuters report