January 5, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Silicon Valley protein therapy biotech Amunix Operating Inc. has partnered with international drug development company Naia Limited on a deal that could be worth more than $140 million if the firm is successful at selling and marketing two Amunix candidates worldwide.
The two therapies are GLP-1-XTEN (renamed NB1001), a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and GLP-2-XTEN, a glucagon-like peptide-2 receptor agonist for the treatment of short bowel syndrome.
Under the terms of the deal, Amunix will be eligible to receive milestones totaling up to $70 million for each project undertaken by Naia, plus tiered royalties on worldwide annual net sales for the licensed products once they are commercialized. For its part, Naia will be responsible for all preclinical and clinical activities of the product resulting from the collaboration, a common stipulation in licensing deals of this type.
The company has already partnered with a host of companies, including Biogen Idec , Janssen , Baxter , Ambrx, Zealand and Noxxon.
The two companies said Monday that they will “collaborate closely” on creating, developing, manufacturing and marketing NB1001 and NB1002. As part of that collaboration, Amunix said it will provide drug development support and technical assistance to Naia for the development of the XTEN-based molecules.
“We are delighted to enter into this strategic partnership and we look forward to our collaboration with Naia, a new company founded and led by an experienced management team in the field of drug development,” said Volker Schellenberger, Amunix president and chief executive officer. “Amunix continues to add collaborations with partners that can leverage our half-life extension technology to bring better therapeutic options for patients worldwide.”
Mountain View, Calif.-based Amunix is a privately held biotechnology company well known for its work on therapies that have improved in vivo half-lives—which means drugs can be dosed less frequently and cause less stress to a patient, a key indicator for therapeutic success and a milestone market biotech investors often look for when ploughing money into successful drug candidates.
The company extends these drug’s half-lives via its add-on polypeptide package XTEN, a group of hydrophilic, unstructured, biodegradable polypeptides that can be recombinantly fused or chemically conjugated to peptides, proteins and other pharmaceuticals. XTENylation has also been shown to stabilize plasma drug concentrations, which often results in increased efficacy as well as reduced side effects.
So far, two of the company’s genetically fused XTENylated products, VRS-859 (Exenatide-XTEN) and VRS-317 (Human Growth Hormone-XTEN) have completed Phase 1 studies. Amunix partner Versartis recently completed a Phase 2a clinical trial with VRS-317 in children with growth hormone deficiency.
