8 May 2017
(Oxford, UK, 8 May 2017) Immunocore Limited, the world’s leading TCR company developing biological drugs to treat cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases, announced today that it has identified a lead compound in its second discovery programme with GSK. This novel ImmTAC lead molecule is relevant in a number of cancers including triple negative breast cancers, oesophageal, gastric and ovarian cancers. The identification of this new ImmTAC has triggered an undisclosed milestone payment to Immunocore.
Immunocore is now working on two ImmTAC programmes under the discovery collaboration agreement with GSK. The first ImmTAC programme under Immunocore’s GSK collaboration is on track to be submitted as an IND this year and will enter Phase I clinical studies during early 2018, with potential application in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), bladder cancer, synovial sarcoma, melanoma and ovarian cancer.
Immunocore and GSK announced their collaboration in 2013, and Immunocore will receive up to a total of £142 million in pre-clinical milestone payments. In addition, for each product that reaches the market, up to £200 million is due to Immunocore in development and commercial milestone payments, plus up to double digit royalties. Immunocore will be responsible for all pre-clinical development and for the initial clinical trial in patients for the first two programmes. GSK will be responsible for the remaining development and commercialisation of the products.
Dr Bent Jakobsen, Chief Scientific Officer at Immunocore, commented: “Our discovery collaboration with GSK is generating novel ImmTAC molecules which are relevant across multiple solid tumours and the disease targets are all intracellularly located, which are hard for other biologic platforms to reach. Our ImmTAC technology is continuing to demonstrate its versatility across a wide range of cancer types showing an ability to tackle solid ‘cold’, low mutation rate tumours – the majority of tumours and across other diseases. We are growing increasingly confident about our opportunity to help patients with some of the most intractable cancers and major diseases.”
Dr Axel Hoos, Senior Vice President Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology R&D Head, at GSK, added: “Our collaboration with Immunocore is progressing extremely well and we have identified novel and promising ImmTAC molecules with potential utility across a broad range of cancer types. We look forward to continued progress in both programmes.”
Please click on the link below to download the full Press Release:
Immunocore identifies second novel ImmTAC® in the GSK collaboration
