Schrödinger and Zai Lab have announced a worldwide development and commercialization collaboration to advance a novel oncology program targeting the DNA damage repair pathway.
Schrödinger and commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company Zai Lab have jointly announced a worldwide discovery, development and commercialization collaboration to advance a novel oncology program targeting the DNA damage repair pathway.
While each company will be responsible for their respective research costs, Zai Lab has agreed to provide Schrödinger an undisclosed upfront payment to support the latter company’s research expenses.
Zai Lab has agreed to take on its selected candidate’s primary global development, manufacturing, and commercialization responsibility. As such, Schrödinger has been granted both co-development and co-commercialization rights, but so far this is limited to the U.S. Schrödinger can also be entitled to up to 50% of profits if it pledges to co-fund the clinical development of a candidate in the U.S.
In addition to the upfront undisclosed research expense payment, Schrödinger is also qualified to receive up to $338 million in preclinical, clinical, regulatory, and sales-based milestone payments. The company is also eligible for royalties on net sales that occur outside of North America.
Schrödinger’s executive vice president and chief biomedical scientist and head of discovery of R&D, Karen Akinsanya, Ph.D., said in a statement that “Zai Lab is an ideal partner” for the collaboration, given its “established track record of developing and commercializing” oncology therapeutics.
“Together, we will aim to accelerate and expand our focus on targeted DNA damage response inhibition, which is emerging as an important therapeutic strategy for a broad range of cancers,” explained Dr. Akinsanya. “Additionally, the structure of this collaboration provides us with the opportunity to gain development and commercial expertise and the potential to participate more significantly in the downstream value of the program.”
Alan Sandler, M.D., Zai Lab’s president and head of global development for oncology, added, “This program will complement our existing discovery efforts in the DNA damage response pathway in addition to potential combinatorial approaches within our pipeline, such as with the PARP inhibitor Zejula.”
Zai Lab’s research partner, GlaxoSmithKline, snagged Zejula a 2020 approval in the U.S. as a monotherapy maintenance option for women with advanced ovarian cancer whose disease is responsive to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, regardless of biomarker status. Originally, once-daily PARP inhibitor Zejula secured approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2017 as maintenance treatment for ovarian cancer.
In June, Zai Lab agreed to a broad strategic collaboration deal that saw the company giving $55 million upfront cash and equity payments to MacroGenics, in addition to $1.4 billion biobucks. The pact involved the licensing of up to four bispecific antibodies, with the deal’s lead program targeting the CD3 protein as well as an undisclosed target expressed in other solid tumors.
Mirati Therapeutics also joined Zai Lab in the same month, signing a licensing deal worth approximately $65 million in cash and $273 million in biobucks to develop a commercialized KRAS agent adagrasib in China.
Zai Lab said in April its plans to raise $750 million, derived from a U.S. depository share offering, to drive its current licensing strategy. In January, Zai Lab secured $175 million for the regional rights to argenx’s autoimmune therapy efgartigimod in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
