After seeing success with the acquisition of Yellow Jersey Therapeutics by Johnson & Johnson this year, Kaken Pharmaceutical and Numab Therapeutics have signed another inflammation-focused collaboration.
Today’s deal involves Japan’s Kaken handing over 13 million Swiss francs ($14.6 million) in upfront cash to Horgen, Switzerland-based Numab Therapeutics in return for an option to in-license the latter company's preclinical inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) candidate in certain Asian territories.
Numab didn’t provide much detail on the asset, dubbed ND081, beyond that the fact that it’s a multispecific antibody with purportedly “best-in-class” potential in IBD. The drug is not listed on Numab’s pipeline, and now Kaken is on tap to fund the drug’s preclinical and clinical development up to a phase 2a proof-of-concept trial.
The two companies have been working together since 2017, and, in 2021, they agreed to collaborate on NM26, a bispecific antibody for atopic dermatitis. That drug was eventually spun out into a biotech called Yellow Jersey Therapeutics, which was in turn snapped up by J&J for $1.25 billion in May of this year.
“We are excited to once again join forces with Kaken to advance one of our multi-specific programs to the clinic as a continuation of our regional partnering strategy aimed at utilizing Numab’s unique proprietary λ-Cap and MATCH technology platforms,” Numab CEO David Urech, Ph.D., said in the Nov. 15 release.
“By leveraging our research and development capabilities and Numab's unique expertise in multi-specifics, we will do our utmost to develop innovative new drugs for IBD,” Kaken’s president and representative director Hiroyuki Horiuchi said in the release.