Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company active in the discovery and development of T-cell redirecting cancer immunotherapies, announced today that it has entered into a research collaboration and license agreement with Genmab A/S (Nasdaq Copenhagen: GEN) to develop next-generation, T-cell engaging bispecific immunotherapies targeting multiple cancer indications.

The companies will conduct joint research, funded by Genmab, to combine Immatics’ XPRESIDENT® and Bispecific TCR technology platforms with Genmab’s proprietary antibody technologies to develop multiple bispecific immunotherapies in oncology. The companies will exclusively discover and develop immunotherapies directed against three proprietary targets, which were discovered and developed by Immatics’ XPRESIDENT® technology. Genmab has the option to exclusively license up to two additional targets to expand the partnership at predetermined economics.

Genmab will be responsible for development, manufacturing and worldwide commercialization. Immatics will have an option to contribute certain promotion efforts at predetermined levels in selected countries in the EU.

Under the terms of the agreement, Immatics will receive an upfront fee of $54 million and is eligible to receive up to $550 million in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments for each product and tiered royalties up to a double-digit percentage of net sales.

Carsten Reinhardt, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer and Managing Director of Immatics, commented: “We are very pleased to join forces with one of the world-leading biotechnology companies to develop and advance novel and highly active cancer therapeutics. This collaboration underpins Immatics’ leadership in intracellular tumor target identification and T-cell receptor engineering.” Dr. Reinhardt further said: “Our bispecific TCR technology exhibits exceptional potency and favourable pharmacokinetic properties by combining Immatics’ proprietary T-cell engaging format with our high-affinity and highly specific T-cell receptors as reported at AACR 2018.(1)”

“This collaboration with Immatics gives us the opportunity to combine our unique technologies and expertise to create differentiated novel next-generation therapies. We very much look forward to this exciting partnership in the field of cancer immunotherapy,” said Jan van de Winkel, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Genmab.