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February 2012
SHARING OPTIONS:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Metamark Genetics Inc., a privately held
oncology company focused on the development of function-based prognostic assays
for early-stage cancers, has entered into a research collaboration and license
agreement with Janssen Biotech Inc.
The agreement is based on Metamark’s discovery platform for
the identification and characterization of specific proprietary cancer targets
demonstrated to play a causal role in promoting tumor progression and spread,
which the company has trademarked as Prognosis Determinants. Metamark President
and CEO Mark R. Straley was most recently the worldwide president of Johnson
& Johnson’s (J&J) Diagnostics division and was instrumental in putting
the deal together with Janssen, a J&J company.
Upon selection of the targets, Janssen Biotech will receive
a limited exclusive license under Metamark’s intellectual property and know-how
and will thereafter be responsible for the discovery, development and
commercialization of therapeutic inhibitors targeting the specific Prognosis
Determinants. Metamark will receive an initial upfront payment from Janssen and
may be eligible to receive up to $365 million in milestone payments across
multiple targets, based upon the achievement of development, regulatory and
commercialization goals. In addition, Metamark will be entitled to royalties on
worldwide net sales of therapeutics and any associated companion diagnostics
upon commercialization.
“This collaboration and license agreement reflect the value
of Metamark’s innovative approach to identifying genes and proteins that drive
aggressive behavior of tumors—both in the development of prognostic assays as
well as in supporting the discovery and development of novel targeted
therapeutics,” says Dr. Eric Devroe, vice president of business and strategy
development at Metamark.
Straley adds, “our ultimate mission at Metamark Genetics is
to improve cancer patient outcomes by empowering personalized treatment
decisions. This collaboration advances our mission by enabling us to apply our
unique understanding of tumor biology to direct the discovery and development
of tumor-specific drugs and compounds.”
The collaborative effort appears to be timely: according to
Metamark Chief Scientific Officer Peter Blume-Jensen, Big Pharma faces a
“patent cliff” in 2012 and is eager for innovation that can help refill its
pipelines. Apparently, Metamark’s discovery platform for development of
prognostic tests offers real promise of assisting in this effort by identifying
the genes that play a causal role in promoting tumor progression and spread.
“Prognosis Determinants are truly the ‘drivers’ of the
aggressive phenotype of cancer, and hence attractive as potential drug target
candidates,” Blume-Jensen says. “They are the proteins encoded by genes
expressed in a metastatic but not a non-metastatic tumor mouse model for a
particular tumor type. These differentially expressed genes have been further
‘triaged’ into human tumors to ensure their relevance for metastatic lesions of
the same type of human cancer, and ultimately validated in functional assays in vitro and in cancer mouse models.
Through this thorough discovery approach, close to 600 non-redundant drug
target candidates have been identified and functionally validated.
Interestingly, for pharmas and biotechs in search of new drug targets, they are
relevant across major tumor types that are among the most common and most
lethal.”
Metamark’s technology is based on a “quantitative multiplex
immunofluorescence (QMIF) platform,” Blume-Jensen says, “integrated with
advanced object recognition. To my knowledge, we have the most advanced QMIF
platform with integrated object recognition. The engineered scope used is from
CRI Vectra with proprietary object recognition programs built on the Definiens
platform. My analogy is that we’ve combined the luxury of a Rolls Royce and the
power of a Lamborghini into one car—and how we drive it is the secret,” he
says.
The Metamark business model is to be based initially on a
reference laboratory at its Cambridge location, where the company is building a
CLIA-certified laboratory it expects to be operational in a few months.
Referring physicians and pathologists will submit patient biopsy samples, and
within a few days, get an accurate prognostic test result back. Ultimately,
Blume-Jensen says, similar operations will be added elsewhere. He expects the
first test, which will be for prostate cancer, to be launch-ready in 2012, with
other tests to follow later in the year.
Janssen licenses
Phylogica peptide technology
PERTH, Australia—In other recent Janssen news, the company
has announced a collaboration and option agreement with Phylogica Ltd., an
Australian peptide drug discovery company, to discover new classes of drugs
derived from Phylogica’s Phylomerâ peptide platform.
In the initial stage of the collaboration, Phylogica will
identify cell-penetrating Phylomerâ peptides. Under the terms of the agreement,
Janssen could develop
Phylomerâ-based drug candidates and has the option to expand
the scope of the collaboration to include additional cell-specific Phylomerâ
for the development of a further 10 drug candidates.
Under the terms of this multi-product agreement, Phylogica
will receive an initial technology access fee as well as research funding over
the first 18 months of the collaboration. Pending ongoing discussions with
Janssen regarding commercial terms, Phylogica could receive further research
funding, license fees, milestone payments and royalties on worldwide sales.
Code: E021214
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