Moments ahead of its option deadline, Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) has renewed a tactical partnership with Epizyme to invent, develop, and commercialize personalized therapies for patients suffering from genetically defined cancer. The deal will remain in effect for three years. Epizyme is a maker of targeted cancer therapies.
The deal meant Epizyme retains U.S. rights to build its HMT inhibitor plans, whereas Celgene gets the exclusive option to license rights outside the U.S. for the first three years of the period and the leverage to extend that for one year with extra funding. This is the third time Epizyme has entered into an agreement with a company.
Three years ago, in April 2012, the two companies signed a similar research collaboration deal. As part of the agreement, Cegene is reported to have given consent to pay Epizyme $10 million as advance and $610 million in the later period to license three drug targets.
The Cambridge MA-owned Epizyme will own up responsibility for building and funding development efforts for each target candidate through Phase I, with Celgene paying a further fee afterwards. Epizyme will get a low double-digit percentage as royalty on global net sales for two of the product categories and on US-sales for the third product.
Epizyme’s other collaborations lie with GlaxoSmithKline, which could fetch the company $18 million in preclinical milestones. This deal was signed on the basis of developing and commercializing tiny molecule inhibitors of HMTs.
Epizyme’s other program tazemetostat is presently undergoing clinical trials on 150 non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients and the data on the same will be ready in 2016. It attempts to slow down the EZH2 enzyme that causes the growth of tumors and helps patients in combating INI 1-deficient solid tumors.
Japanese pharma company Eisai has been given license to conduct clinical trials.
In a press release, Epizyme said that its present funding has sufficient cash to operate in the second quarter of 2017. In June, 2013, Epizyme aggregated $79.8 million through an IPO.
The New Jersey-based Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) is a global biopharma company that is into the invention, development and commercialization of ground-breaking therapies for cancer treatment and inflammatory ailments through gene and protein regulation.