Exclusive right for its cancer immunotherapy targeting the immune checkpoint inhibitor PD-L1 in China and Taiwan is transferred

Rights to Chinese and Taiwanese markets for an anticancer immunotherapy developed by a KOSDAQ listed company are licensed out for the first time in Korea.

STCube announced on the 19th that it completed an exclusive license agreement with ALPS Biotech, Taiwan, for development and sales of the company’s proprietary PD-L1 antibody in China and Taiwan.

Under the agreement, ALPS Biotech obtains exclusive right for development and commercialization of the PD-L1 antibody jointly developed by STCube and MD Anderson Cancer Center in China and Taiwan.

Based on the terms of the ageement, STCube receives milstones up to 10 million U.S. dollars during development and commercialization phase in addition to an upfront payment of 1 million U.S. dollars. In addition, when the commercial sale in China or Taiiwan is initiated, royalties amounting to minimum of 30 million U.S. dollars will be guaranteed. 

STCube’s immunotherapy, the subject of the current agreement, targets PD-L1 protein on the surface of cancer cells.

T-cells, immune cells present in our body, attack abnormal cells when detected. The problem is, though, cancer cells adopt various defense mechanism to avoid immune attacks from T cells in order to survive. For example, Cancer cells produce PD-L1 protein as a defensive mechanism. As PD-L1 protein on the surface of cancer cells binds to PD-1 protein in T cells, T cells lose their ability to attack cancer cells. Cancer immunotherapies act by preventing binding of PD-1/PD-L1 protein and resulting disablement of T cells, which then would enable the T cells to attack tumor cells.

The mechanism for cancer immunotherapy is different from those of existing anticancer chemotherapeutic agents. Because existing anticancer chemotherapeutic agents non-selectively attack normal cells as well as cancer cells, adverse effects associated with these agents are known to be severe. In contrast, immunotherapy act by activating the immune system of human body, attacking cancer cells, resulting in significantly reduced adverse effects and longer lasting efficacies. In addition, because cancer immunotherapies are currently a subject of significant interest in the field due to the recent reports that such therapies can be effective against various types of cancers.

While a number of multinational pharmaceutical companies have marketed PD-L1 antibody drugs, STCube’s approach is differentiated from the currently marketed PD-L1 antibody drugs in that STCube’s antibody was developed using its proprietary glycosylation-specific antibody production platform, and thus is thought to be the “next-generation” PD-L1 antibody. STCube believes that such technological advantage is partly what enabled the early stage licensing of its PD-L1 antibody during preclinical phase.

While the existing PD-L1 antibodies are known to act solely by neutralizing the binding between PD-L1 and PD-1, the antibody developed by STCube, in addition to neutralizing such binding, can also internalize PD-L1 protein into cancer cells, induce degradation of PD-L1, and reduce PD-L1’s stability, all of which further facilitate immune cells’ effective attack on cancer cells. Particularly, because of its property to internalize, STCube’s antibody is optimized for antibody-drug-conjugates-based drugs.

As such, various characteristics that differentiate STCube’s antibody from other currently marketed antibodies stem from the antibody’s ability to selectively mask specific glycosylation sites of PD-L1 protein expressed on cancer cells. As a result, cancer cell killing by immune cells was found to be more significant using STCube’s PD-L1 antibody than when other marketed PD-L1 antibodies were used. The results were published in the 2016 August issue of Nature Communications (doi: 10.1038/ncomms12632).

One official of the company stated: “Completion of the current license agreement with ALPS Biotech, who possesses significant R&D capabilities, should help establish the reliability of STCube’s technological edge, particularly in overseas markets. We are hopeful about the prospect of additional technology transfers to multinational pharmaceutical companies in other overseas markets such as U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Southeast Asia, and South America, in addition to China and Taiwan." <End>