BRIEF—Boehringer licenses multiple Dark Antigen from Enara Bio for NSCLC

German family-owned pharma major Boehringer Ingelheim has exercised its option to license a number of cancer antigens discovered and validated through the ongoing collaboration using Enara Bio’s Dark Antigen discovery platform, EDAPT.

This licensing event is a major milestone in the strategic collaboration between the companies that was announced in January 2021.

Under the collaboration, Enara Bio’s EDAPT platform is being used to discover and validate Dark Antigens in multiple solid tumor types.

The initial discovery project identified a series of antigens with high prevalence in NSCLC patients. During the antigen validation work package, Enara Bio demonstrated that the licensed antigens have several attractive characteristics as targets for immunotherapies.

These include confirmed presence on the surface of tumor cells, minimal or no expression on healthy cells, homogenous expression within tumors, and strong immunogenicity.

In addition to licensing these antigens, Boehringer has triggered the remaining component of the collaboration to initiate antigen discovery in another solid tumor.

Based on the licensed antigens, Boehringer intends to develop novel off-the-shelf vaccines for the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).