Ab­b­Vie is arm­ing it­self with an­oth­er set of bow and ar­rows to shoot at BC­MA in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma — and this time it has turned to col­lab­o­ra­tors at Har­poon Ther­a­peu­tics.

In pay­ing $50 mil­lion for an op­tion to li­cense HPN217, Ab­b­Vie gains ex­clu­sive ac­cess to a Tri-spe­cif­ic T cell Ac­ti­vat­ing Con­struct, or Tri­TAC, that is be­ing steered to a Phase I/II tri­al. The dos­ing of the first pa­tient will call for an­oth­er $50 mil­lion in con­tin­gent mile­stone pay­ment. Once Har­poon comes up with the da­ta, its phar­ma gi­ant part­ner will de­cide whether to of­fi­cial­ly add it to the ar­se­nal.

It is an ar­se­nal that al­ready fea­tures a CD3/BC­MA bis­pe­cif­ic from Teneo­bio, a lit­tle known play­er un­til Ab­b­Vie swooped in with $90 mil­lion in cash this Feb­ru­ary. The Sil­i­con Val­ley biotech’s pitch cen­ters on a T cell en­gager plat­form that “in­volves a com­bi­na­tion of a heavy chain on­ly an­ti-BC­MA binder and a nov­el an­ti-CD3 binder, which de­cou­ples tar­get can­cer cell killing from cy­tokine re­lease.”

The re­la­tion­ship with MPM-backed Har­poon dates back to 2017, when Ab­b­Vie dished out $17 mil­lion up­front to kick off some dis­cov­ery ef­forts on the Tri­TAC plat­form. The trans­ac­tion an­nounced to­day can be worth up to $510 mil­lion, the com­pa­nies said.

Na­tal­ie Sacks

“As our pipeline of ini­tial Tri­TAC clin­i­cal can­di­dates ad­vance in prostate and ovar­i­an can­cers, we are thrilled to part­ner with Ab­b­Vie in pur­suit of ther­a­pies geared to­wards hema­to­log­ic can­cers,” Har­poon CMO Na­tal­ie Sacks said in a state­ment.

BC­MA is a par­tic­u­lar­ly hot tar­get for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma, en­tic­ing a swarm of CAR-T de­vel­op­ers like blue­bird and Juno as well as in­spir­ing no­table ef­forts to de­vel­op bis­pecifics by Am­gen and Re­gen­eron. At last count, there were 38 BC­MA-tar­get­ed agents in clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

On top of HPN217, Ab­b­Vie is al­so dou­bling down on the dis­cov­ery front, ex­pand­ing the agree­ment to in­clude two more Tri­TAC mol­e­cules and the op­tion to se­lect up to four ad­di­tion­al tar­gets. Each se­lect­ed tar­get could earn Har­poon up to $310 mil­lion in to­tal.

The Endpoints News team is continuing to track IPO filings for 2021, and we’ve designed a new tracker page for the effort.

Check it out here: Biopharma IPOs 2021 from Endpoints News

You’ll be able to find all the biotechs that have filed and priced so far this year, sortable by quarter and listed by newest first. As of the time of publishing on Feb. 25, there have already been 16 biotechs debuting on Nasdaq so far this year, with an additional four having filed their S-1 paperwork.

Roche and Genentech have committed $53 million to back a 10-year quest aimed at going back to the drawing board to use new technology and fresh scientific insights to generate a pipeline of drugs for neurological diseases.

Researchers from both Roche and its big South San Francisco hub — mixing teams from gRED and pRED this time — will mix it up with the scientists drawn together for the Weill Neurohub — formed in 2019 as a joint research partnership involving UCSF, Berkeley and the University of Washington — in an exploration of the field to develop new therapies for some of the toughest diseases in drug R&D: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and autism.

The US could have a third authorized Covid-19 vaccine within hours.

The FDA’s advisory committee voted unanimously — 22-0 — to recommend the agency issue an emergency use authorization for J&J’s vaccine. If they follow the precedent of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine,  the FDA will likely authorize the vaccine by Saturday, immediately adding a few million doses to the US supply and adding a 100 million by June. An authorization would give the world its first single-dose vaccine, a major weapon in the effort to vaccinate the world and bring the virus to heel, particularly in rural and developing areas.