• Companies will partner to advance multispecific antibodies in up to seven discrete projects, including one program against an undisclosed target currently in lead selection
• Invenra recently announced a collaboration with Merck to discover fully human therapeutic antibodies against an unnamed target of interest to Merck
• Exelixis and Invenra will collaborate to discover and develop multispecific antibodies through the use of Invenra’s B-Body™ technology platform

Exelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL) announced on 5/2/18 that it has entered into a collaboration with Invenra, Inc., the Madison, Wisconsin-based biotechnology firm focused on developing next-generation biologics, to discover and develop multispecific antibodies for the treatment of cancer. Multispecific antibodies are engineered antibodies that bind to more that one type of antigen.

The partnership pairs Exelixis’ fundamental biological insights, clinical development prowess and commercialization expertise with Invenra’s innovative platform technologies and biologics expertise to identify, optimize, and manufacture multispecific therapeutics, including immunotherapy applications. The collaboration is part of Exelixis’ ongoing strategy to build an innovative pipeline beyond its two internally discovered, commercially available compounds, cabozantinib and cobimetinib. The agreement with Invenra creates a biologics discovery capability that complements Exelixis’ in-house small molecule drug discovery efforts.

Under the terms of the agreement, Exelixis and Invenra will collaborate to discover and develop multispecific antibodies through the use of Invenra’s B-Body technology platform, which enables high-throughput discovery, functional screening, and in vitro and in vivo preclinical characterization of promising therapeutic candidates. Invenra will be responsible for antibody lead discovery and generation. Exelixis will lead investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies, manufacturing, clinical development in single-agent and combination therapy regimens, as well as future regulatory and commercialization activities.

“Partnering with Invenra to leverage its deep expertise in protein engineering and the discovery of multispecific antibodies is an important step toward adding proprietary biologics to the Exelixis pipeline,” said Peter Lamb, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Discovery Research and Chief Scientific Officer of Exelixis.” We are excited to work with the Invenra team and have structured our collaboration to provide relatively small financial support upfront and pay for success down the road. As we rebuild our internal small molecule discovery capability, this partnership provides a complementary approach that enables us to target pathways not accessible to small molecules, increasing our ability to advance novel therapies into the clinic.”

In July, Invenra announced a collaboration with Merck to discover fully human therapeutic antibodies against an unnamed target of interest to Merck.  Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.