Munich/ Martins­ried, Germany — Tubu­lis and Bris­tol Myers Squibb have ente­red into a stra­te­gic license agree­ment for the deve­lo­p­ment of diffe­ren­tia­ted anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs). Under the terms of the license agree­ment, Bris­tol Myers Squibb will receive exclu­sive rights to Tubu­lis’ proprie­tary conju­ga­tion plat­forms for the deve­lo­p­ment of a select number of highly diffe­ren­tia­ted ADCs for the treat­ment of solid tumors. The agree­ment includes an upfront payment of $22.75 million to Tubu­lis and poten­tial mile­stone payments in excess of $1 billion for deve­lo­p­ment, regu­la­tory appr­oval and commer­cia­liza­tion, as well as royal­ties on the resul­ting marke­ted products.

Tubu­lis, based in Martins­ried, Germany, and Bris­tol Myers Squibb (BMS) intend to use the stra­te­gic part­ner­ship to further advance the deve­lo­p­ment of anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADC). BMS will gain access to Tubu­lis’ proprie­tary P5 conju­ga­tion and Tubu­te­can plat­forms to deve­lop versa­tile and custo­mizable ADCs for cancer treatment.

The Tubu­lis P5 and Tubu­te­can plat­forms enable the produc­tion of ultra-stable ADCs with the poten­tial to actively reduce unwan­ted target-inde­pen­dent toxi­ci­ties. At the same time, they are opti­mi­zed for targe­ted deli­very of potent topoisomerase‑1 inhi­bi­tors. Follo­wing Bris­tol Myers Squibb’s selec­tion of the target, Tubu­lis will provide the company with its linker payloads to gene­rate a uniquely matched ADC for each antibody.

Bris­tol Myers Squibb will assume sole respon­si­bi­lity for the deve­lo­p­ment, manu­fac­tu­ring and commer­cia­liza­tion of the resul­ting ADC candidates.

Almost exactly a year ago, ^m4 Award winner Tubu­lis had announ­ced a major success, successfully closing a Series B finan­cing of €60 million.

“This stra­te­gic agree­ment with Bris­tol Myers Squibb is an important vali­da­tion of the poten­tial of our approach to deve­lo­ping next-gene­ra­tion ADC-based thera­peu­tics and our state-of-the-art ADC conju­ga­tion tech­no­lo­gies that enable advan­ced ADC design to treat tumors with high unmet medi­cal need,” said Domi­nik Schu­ma­cher, M.D., CEO and co-foun­der of Tubu­lis. He sees the colla­bo­ra­tion with BMS as a signi­fi­cant step “in chan­ging onco­logy treat­ment para­digms and achie­ving better outco­mes for cancer patients.”

“ADCs play a promi­sing role in cancer therapy, and Tubu­lis’ diffe­ren­tia­ted tech­no­lo­gies offer oppor­tu­ni­ties to over­come current chal­lenges in deve­lo­ping safe and effec­tive ADC thera­peu­tics,” said Dr. Emma Lees, senior vice presi­dent, rese­arch and early deve­lo­p­ment and head of the Thema­tic Rese­arch Center for Mecha­nisms of Cancer Resis­tance at Bris­tol Myers Squibb.