BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aduro BioTech, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, today announced that it has entered into an agreement granting Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Janssen) an exclusive, worldwide license to certain product candidates specifically engineered for the treatment of prostate cancer based on its novel LADD immunotherapy platform. Under the agreement, facilitated by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation center in California, Aduro is eligible to receive up to $365 million in upfront license fees and milestone payments upon achievement of defined development, regulatory and commercialization milestones, if multiple programs advance to commercialization, as well as tiered royalties on worldwide net sales.
Janssen will assume responsibility for all research, development, manufacturing, regulatory and commercialization activities for the licensed products. Under a separate agreement, Aduro has granted Janssen exclusive rights to Aduro’s GVAX technology for prostate cancer.
“We are pleased to provide Janssen with novel immunotherapies engineered specifically for this indication,” said Stephen T. Isaacs, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Aduro. “We believe this is an important validation of our platform strategy and we are excited to have the Janssen development team taking the lead in advancing the prostate cancer program. Separately, we look forward to continued progress with our LADD platform in a broad array of other oncology indications, including pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma, non-small cell lung cancer and glioblastoma among others.”
About LADD
LADD is Aduro’s proprietary platform of live-attenuated double-deleted Listeria monocytogenes strains that have been engineered to induce a potent innate immune response and to express tumor-associated antigens to induce tumor-specific T cell-mediated immunity.
About GVAX
GVAX is a family of vaccines derived from human cancer cell lines, which are genetically modified to secrete granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), an immune-stimulatory cytokine. Aduro’s GVAX portfolio includes vaccines for pancreatic, prostate, colon and breast cancers as well as multiple myeloma.
About Aduro BioTech, Inc.
Aduro BioTech, Inc. is a private, clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on immunotherapy for cancer. Aduro has ongoing clinical trials with its LADD platform in pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma and glioblastoma and development programs in non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. The company is also developing clinical candidates using novel small molecules that activate the intracellular STING receptor, a central mediator of the innate immune response. For more information, please visit www.adurobiotech.com.
