Numab and Eisai enter global agreement for multi-specific antibody immunotherapies for cancer

Numab Therapeutics AG (Numab) today announced the initiation of a partnership with Eisai, Co., Ltd (Eisai), under a research and option agreement, to discover and develop novel multi-specific antibody immunotherapies for cancer, using Numab’s proprietary MATCH platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, Eisai has the option to acquire an exclusive license to develop and commercialize novel multi-specific antibody-based molecules that emerge from their research collaboration with Numab. In exchange, Numab will receive from Eisai an upfront payment and research funding and is eligible to receive success fees, milestone payments and tiered royalties on sales.

Dr. David Urech, CEO of Numab, said: “We are excited to enter into this partnership with Eisai, a company with a distinguished track-record of providing innovative treatment options for patients suffering from cancer. We look forward to collaborating with Eisai and applying Numab’s MATCH™ platform with the goal of leveraging multi-specific technology to generate cancer therapeutics that provide superior efficacy and safety compared to benchmark immunotherapies.”

Dr. Takashi Owa, Vice President, Chief Medicine Creation and Chief Discovery Officer, Oncology Business Group at Eisai, said: “We highly value this partnership with Numab, whose versatile technology platform can produce plug-and-play multi-specific immunotherapies with outstanding biophysical properties and efficacy-to-safety profiles. Like Numab, we believe that engineering multi-specific drugs is a very promising strategy to enhance patient responses and overcome several limitations faced by mono-specific drugs and combinations thereof. We are excited to be working together with Numab to potentially bring next-generation antibody drugs to patients.”