Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

CTMX/BMY joint PR on expanded collaboration:

http://ir.cytomx.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=254195&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2255061

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) and CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTMX)…today announced an expansion of their 2014 strategic collaboration to discover novel therapies that will include up to eight additional targets using CytomX's proprietary Probody platform.

…As part of the original collaboration signed in May 2014 to discover, develop and commercialize Probody therapeutics, Bristol-Myers Squibb selected four oncology targets, including CTLA-4 [this was announced in 2014—see #msg-102526895]. In the collaboration to date, Bristol-Myers Squibb has progressed the CTLA-4 Probody therapeutic to Investigational New Drug-enabling studies and the three other programs are in the lead discovery and optimization phase.

…Under the terms of the agreement, CytomX will grant Bristol-Myers Squibb exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize Probody therapeutics for up to six additional oncology targets and two non-oncology targets. Bristol-Myers Squibb will make an upfront payment of $200 million to CytomX and, in addition, will provide research funding over the course of the research term. CytomX will also be eligible to receive up to $448 million in future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments for each collaboration target, as well as tiered royalties from the mid-single digits to low-double digits on net sales of each product commercialized by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Touting the progression of the CTLA-4 program to the IND-enabling phase during the three years since the 2014 collaboration was inked (in the second excerpted paragraph above) is a little odd, since it doesn’t pin down when phase-1 trials will actually start.