I-Mab Biopharma and ABL Bio, jointly announced that two companies had entered into a partnering agreement for ABL Bio to in-license the global rights excluding Greater China to I-Mab's bispecific antibodies (BsAb) of undisclosed target with licensing payments of approximately $100 million. The two companies also agreed on a collaboration to co-develop additional BsAbs as part of the partnership.
Under the terms of the agreement, ABL Bio will pay US$2.5 million in upfront payment. I-Mab will also receive research & development, regulatory and sales-based milestone payments, which could result in aggregate payments of US$100 million from ABL Bio. Additionally, ABL Bio will pay tiered royalties on net sales. The partnership also includes three more collaborative bi-specific antibody projects. I-Mab and ABL Bio will share the development cost as well as rights in China, South Korea and rest of the world in different configurations.
"This partnership with ABL Bio is a latest addition to our growing portfolio of global partnerships spanning from early stage projects to clinical assets. We are very pleased to work with ABL Bio for their cutting-edge discovery and antibody engineering platform for novel therapeutic antibodies," said Jingwu Zang, the founder and CEO of I-Mab. "Bi-specific antibody truly represents the next wave biologics in cancer immunotherapy for its unique modality to create target synergy," Zang added.
I-Mab has successfully completed a string of in-licensing deals with global pharmaceutical companies such as MorphoSys AG and Genexine to enrich its China portfolio. This out-licensing and partnership is the second such transaction for I-Mab and marks the beginning of I-Mab's ability to out-license or co-develop its own innovative biologics through global partnerships.