Ligand Pharmaceuticals has entered into a worldwide license agreement with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Surface Oncology. Under the license, Surface will be able to use the OmniRat, OmniMouse and OmniFlic platforms to discover fully human mono- and bispecific antibodies. Ligand is eligible to receive annual platform access payments, development and regulatory milestone payments, and tiered royalties for each product incorporating an OmniAb antibody. Surface will be responsible for all costs related to the programs.
“This agreement allows Surface Oncology to join a growing roster of companies with access to OmniAb, our novel transgenic rodent technology that goes beyond a transgenic mouse technology, adding a transgenic rat and a separate transgenic rat with fixed light chain antibodies to enable bispecific antibody discovery,” John Higgins, Chief Executive Officer of Ligand said. “This is the second OmniAb partnership announced within a week, further demonstrating the significant partnership interest that exists for this important, novel technology.”
Surface Oncology is an immuno-oncology company developing next-generation immunotherapies targeting the tumor microenvironment. Surface’s novel cancer immunotherapies are designed to treat tumors that are unresponsive to currently available therapies, and would be used in combination with currently available therapies to enhance the overall efficacy of the treatment. The company has a pipeline of seven novel immunotherapies, including programs targeting CD47 and CD73, supported by a strategic collaboration with Novartis focused on up to four next-generation immunotherapies.
OmniAb includes three transgenic animal platforms for producing mono- and bispecific human therapeutic antibodies. OmniRat is the industry’s first human monoclonal antibody technology based on rats. It has a complete immune system with a diverse antibody repertoire and generates antibodies with human idiotypes as effectively as wild-type animals make rat antibodies. OmniMouse is a transgenic mouse that complements OmniRat and expands epitope coverage. OmniFlic is an engineered rat with a fixed light chain for development of bispecific, fully human antibodies.