This month Ambrx formed its third partnership with a big pharma company in the past year in a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb worth $15 million up front and up to $97 million per product if milestones are achieved. The company previously formed partnerships with Astellas and Merck, all of which have involved using the company’s technology to create best-in-class antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). In the past 12 months Ambrx has secured $45 million in non-dilutive funding.
First-generation technologies to create ADCs produce heterogeneous mixtures of the drugs, resulting in suboptimal safety and efficacy properties. To overcome this limitation, Ambrx’s technology enables the site-specific conjugation of the antibody to the drug, which enables the creation of a best-in-class ADC.
This is the third deal between Ambrx and Bristol-Myers Squibb, as the companies entered into two separate agreements in 2011 to develop and commercialize biologics created using Ambrx’s ReCODE technology. These therapeutic candidates, which target Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF-21) protein for the potential treatment of type 2 diabetes and the Relaxin hormone for the potential treatment of heart failure, are being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Russo Partners worked to secure coverage of the news across newswires, including Dow Jones VentureWire; industry publications, including BioWorld Today and Scrip; and regional publications, including the U-T San Diego and San Diego Business Journal. Read more about the collaboration below in the article from the U-T San Diego.
Last month, Jack Lief, president and chief executive officer of 
Under the collaboration, Ambrx will receive an upfront payment of $15 million in addition to $285 million in potential near- and long-term research, development, regulatory and sales-based milestones. A portion of these milestones are contingent on eventual successful commercialization of products developed through this collaboration. Astellas will receive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize the ADCs for oncology.
The Association of Bioscience Financial Officers (ABFO) International will be holding its annual ABFO National Conference in San Diego, Calif., from May 28-31, 2013. Featuring keynote speakers, breakout sessions and fun events, this conference provides the opportunity to network with bioscience chief financial officers (CFOs) and to discuss the current role of the CFO in this sector.
This week, serial biotech entrepreneur Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., was profiled the U-T San Diego.
