Two Ko­re­an com­pa­nies have signed a joint R&D dis­cov­ery agree­ment, with the po­ten­tial to earn in the nine-fig­ures.

Clin­i­cal-stage bio­phar­ma Genuv has part­nered up with Cell­tri­on to dis­cov­er an­ti­bod­ies us­ing the for­mer’s Shine Mouse plat­form, which they hope could po­ten­tial­ly open up more R&D projects to­geth­er in the fu­ture. There’s no up­front cash, but Genuv will re­ceive mile­stone pay­ments of up to $25 mil­lion if Cell­tri­on de­cides to op­tion a pro­gram in­to the clin­ic, and up to $680 mil­lion in mile­stones per pro­gram if its sales sur­pass $7.5 bil­lion.

Genuv, which is fo­cused on on­col­o­gy and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases, al­ready has sev­er­al an­ti­bod­ies in its pipeline: GNUV205, a tu­mor-spe­cif­ic IL-2-based im­muno­cy­tokine an­ti­cancer drug and an­oth­er an­ti-PD-1 drug can­di­date GNUV201.

Ac­cord­ing to Genuv, the com­pa­ny’s plat­form “gen­er­ates an­ti­bod­ies with greater di­ver­si­ty com­pared to those de­vel­oped with con­ven­tion­al mice.” Genuv has a sec­ond plat­form, Nu­voFc, which en­ables the de­sign and de­vel­ops new bi-/mul­ti-specifics. Genuv is al­so near­ing the com­ple­tion of a third plat­form, Nu­voMab,which di­rect­ly dis­cov­ers hu­man an­ti­bod­ies.

Sung­ho Han

“We are ex­cit­ed to em­bark on our mouse plat­form busi­ness with Cell­tri­on as our first part­ner,” Sung­ho Han, Genuv founder and CEO, said in a state­ment. “We be­lieve Cell­tri­on’s in-depth knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ences in an­ti­body de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion and Genuv’s ex­per­tise in nov­el an­ti­body dis­cov­ery with our SHINE MOUSE plat­form could gen­er­ate great syn­er­gies in pro­vid­ing in­no­v­a­tive an­ti­body ther­a­peu­tics.”

Genuv lists sev­en to­tal can­di­dates in its pipeline, in­clud­ing SNR1611, a MEK1/2 in­hibitor in Phase II tri­als for ALS and in the IND-en­abling phase for Alzheimer’s.

Cell­tri­on has been on the ex­pan­sion path over the last sev­er­al years, with an in­vest­ment of $453 mil­lion in 2020 in­to build­ing a new re­search cen­ter and man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in its home city of In­cheon, Ko­rea. In 2019, the com­pa­ny blue­print­ed a $514 mil­lion bi­o­log­ics plant in Chi­na.

In 2020, hon­orary chair­man Jung Jin Seo laid out his vi­sion for the com­pa­ny over the next decade with a goal of launch­ing one biosim­i­lar prod­uct every year, reach­ing a to­tal num­ber of 18 prod­ucts by 2030. It ap­pears to be on its way to Seo’s goal with sev­en biosim­i­lars de­scribed on its web­site so far.

In Sep­tem­ber of last year, reg­u­la­tors ap­proved Cell­tri­on’s biosim­i­lar Veg­zel­ma in six can­cer types, the com­pa­ny’s third can­cer biosim­i­lar ap­proved in the US.

Otonomy may be shutting down, but the lessons learned there will live on at another biotech working on new treatments for hearing loss.

San Francisco-based Spiral Therapeutics has bought certain assets related to three of Otonomy’s programs, ranging from data, patent rights, and know-how to inventory. That includes data around Otonomy’s twice-failed lead program, OTO-104 (Otividex), a sustained-exposure formulation of dexamethasone.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”