Ex­elix­is is dol­ing out $25 mil­lion to snag rights to choose three tar­gets found by BioIn­vent.

The Cal­i­for­nia can­cer drug­mak­er is link­ing arms with the Swedish biotech — both found­ed in the mid 90s — to ex­pand its suite of an­ti­bod­ies for im­muno-on­col­o­gy. BioIn­vent will of­fer up its can­cer im­munol­o­gy and an­ti­body bi­ol­o­gy chops and Ex­elix­is will bring its an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate tech to the ta­ble.

BioIn­vent will use its so-called n-CoDeR an­ti­body li­brary and screen­ing plat­form to find the three yet-dis­closed tar­gets. The Lund, Swe­den biotech will be re­spon­si­ble for char­ac­ter­iz­ing the an­ti­bod­ies’ mech­a­nism of ac­tion, and then Ex­elix­is has the right to in-li­cense de­vel­op­ment can­di­dates di­rect­ed to those tar­gets.

Op­tion ex­er­cise fees and mile­stones are po­ten­tial­ly on deck for BioIn­vent. Tiered roy­al­ties, too, if any prod­ucts make it to mar­ket. Ex­elix­is has ex­pe­ri­ence on that front, with mul­ti­ple ap­proved ther­a­pies, in­clud­ing Cometriq, Cotel­lic and Cabome­tyx.

“Ex­elix­is has a demon­strat­ed track record of suc­cess in both com­mer­cial­iz­ing im­por­tant new on­col­o­gy med­i­cines and es­tab­lish­ing high­ly pro­duc­tive col­lab­o­ra­tions that in­te­grate di­verse and com­ple­men­tary skill sets and tech­nolo­gies — such as tox­in and cy­tokine con­ju­ga­tion of mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies for ADC and bis­pe­cif­ic mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body tech­nolo­gies — to en­able the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment of in­no­v­a­tive ther­a­pies with sig­nif­i­cant clin­i­cal and com­mer­cial po­ten­tial,” BioIn­vent CEO Mar­tin Welschof said in a state­ment.

Ex­elix­is’ new part­ner has inked a slate of deals over its 26-year his­to­ry. BioIn­vent’s biotech bud­dies in­clude a po­ten­tial­ly $500 mil­lion col­lab­o­ra­tion with Pfiz­er, a 50/50 sol­id tu­mor pro­gram with Trans­gene, an ex­clu­sive li­cense with CASI Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to take its ear­ly-stage can­cer drug to Chi­na, tri­al agree­ments to test Mer­ck’s Keytru­da in com­bo stud­ies, an an­ti­body deal with Bay­er Health­care and oth­er an­ti­body dis­cov­ery part­ners.

Al­so on Thurs­day, BioIn­vent’s nom­i­na­tion com­mit­tee pro­posed adding Na­tal­ie Bern­er and Nan­na Lüneborg to the board. Bern­er is a man­ag­ing part­ner at BioIn­vent’s largest share­hold­er, Red­mile Group, and Lüneborg is a gen­er­al part­ner at For­bion, now a 5% share­hold­er of the biotech, as of ear­li­er this month.

Pfizer has inked a deal to develop a new Covid therapy with Clear Creek Bio — a 10-person biotech out of RA Capital with an office in Cambridge, MA, but one that operates fully remotely.

Paxlovid has become a big moneymaker for Pfizer this year, projecting $22 billion in sales on the year. But the Big Pharma has begun its search for a next-generation Covid antiviral and potential combination therapies as supply of Paxlovid greatly eclipses actual use of the antiviral.

More and more women are driving innovation and taking leadership roles in biotech – as evidenced today in the release of Endpoints News’ list of the top 20 women in the R&D world – but those gains are beginning to extend across pharma sectors.

In pharma manufacturing in the US today, around 46% of all roles are occupied by women, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2021. And according to a Bloomberg report, women’s roles across manufacturing roles had a massive boost after the start of the pandemic.