WOBURN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Abpro, a biotech company with the mission of improving the lives of mankind facing severe and life-threatening diseases with next-generation antibody therapies, announced a strategic partnership with Celltrion, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Incheon, South Korea, today, for its cancer molecule ABP 102, an antibody therapy for patients suffering from HER2+ cancer, including breast, gastric, and pancreatic cancer. Through this global partnership, Abpro will receive payments from Celltrion of up to $1.75 Billion, including an equity investment, development and commercial milestone payments and worldwide profit sharing. Celltrion will be in charge of the development of ABP 102 following the completion of in vitro studies by Abpro and will have world-wide commercialization rights. HER2+ type cancer is implicated in up to 30% of all cases in breast, gastric, pancreatic, and other forms of cancer.
“We are thrilled to be able to enter this collaboration with Celltrion and are excited to work with such an excellent partner on bringing this treatment to market. Through our commitment to patients, we strive to enable them to live life to the fullest, and this collaboration with Celltrion, a world class pharmaceutical company, will help us meet that goal,” said Ian Chan, co-founder and CEO of Abpro. “This is a significant validation of our technology platform and also our pipeline of t-cell engagers. We aim to deliver therapies to help patients facing severe disease that leads to a better quality of life.”
“Abpro’s ABP 102 molecule has shown preliminary data of better efficacy and less toxicity compared to other therapies treating the same indication,” said Dr. Sooyoung Lee, VP and head of the new drug research division of Celltrion. “We are confident this partnership will allow us to deliver the best possible care to patients suffering from HER2+ cancer. Abpro’s platform looks highly promising and potentially best-in-class. Together, we will go great lengths to ensure people live longer, healthier lives.”
About Abpro
Abpro Corporation is a clinical stage biotechnology company located in Woburn, Massachusetts. The Company’s mission is to improve the lives of mankind facing severe and life-threatening diseases with next-generation antibody therapies.
Abpro’s DiversImmune™ platform has been used successfully to generate monoclonal antibody therapies against 300 traditionally difficult targets. The Diversimmune™ platform combines nano-immunology, next-generation sequencing, advanced engineering and bioinformatics to create monoclonal antibody therapies against traditionally difficult targets.
Abpro’s MultiMab™ platform uses dual-targeting antibodies, or the antibody’s two “arms”, to grab the tumor cell with one and a T cell in the other. This allows antibodies to simultaneously bind to tumor-specific antigen and to cytotoxic T cells to kill the tumor cells. The T cell works to destroy the tumor cell by leveraging the body’s natural immune system response that eliminates foreign cells. By including two binding sites for the tumor antigen, these molecules are designed to form a much stronger connection to tumor cells than molecules that feature only a single binding site.
The Company has a pipeline of therapies to treat cancer, eye, autoimmune, infectious diseases and other areas. For more information, please visit www.abpro.com.
About Celltrion
A leading force in the Korean pharmaceutical industry, Celltrion achieved what was thought impossible by launching the world’s first “antibody biosimilar” from a country with a relatively underdeveloped pharmaceutical sector. The company has pioneered numerous uncharted areas to stellar success, which it plans to follow up by continuing its growth as a global biopharmaceutical company with unique approaches to small molecule pharmaceuticals and new businesses such as the Ubiquitous-healthcare platform business.
