
Hummingbird and Synaffix agree to antibody-drug conjugate deal worth up to $150M
The Dutch biotech Synaffix has been active on the deal front for the past few years. And it’s not showing signs of stopping, hitting the ground running in 2023 by inking a deal with Singapore’s Hummingbird Bioscience.
In an announcement Monday, Hummingbird and the antibody-drug conjugate biotech said they will enter into a licensing agreement, opening the door for Hummingbird to develop an ADC program using Synaffix’s technology.
Synaffix will be eligible for up to $150 million, which includes both an upfront and milestone payment plus royalties on net sales. Hummingbird, meanwhile, will get the rights to use Synaffix’s ADC technologies, one of which uses glycans as an anchoring point in antibodies while the other extends the drugs’ half-lives. The biotech theorizes they can then remove them to create space for the drug payload.
In a statement from Hummingbird CEO Piers Ingram, the company plans to combine the technologies from Synaffix with its efforts in generating antibodies on its RAD, or rational antibody discovery platform.
However, no details on the candidate or when the deal would close were provided. Endpoints News reached out to Hummingbird for more information.
“By combining our cutting-edge ADC technology platform with Hummingbird Bio’s next-generation portfolio of precision therapeutics we can further contribute towards the transformation of cancer treatment.” Synaffix CEO Peter van de Sande said in a statement.
This is not the first effort by Synaffix to license out its technology. In February of last year, the biotech signed a deal with MacroGenics for $586 million in upfront and milestone payments across the three programs and was eligible for royalties on commercial sales.
In 2021, Synaffix also signed a deal with Kyowa Kirin and in 2019, it also secured a $125 million licensing pact with China’s Miracogen.