Mersana Therapeutics in up to $300 million deal with Takeda

13 January 2015

Privately-held US biotech company Mersana Therapeutics has expanded its ongoing collaboration with Japan’s largest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical (TSE:4502), to create novel Fleximer antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) drug candidates to include additional oncology-relevant targets.

Under the terms of the deal, Mersana is eligible to receive additional upfront and milestone payments potentially totaling over $300 million under the expanded collaboration subject to future success of the programs. The partners' collaboration was announced in April 2014, and since then, Mersana and Takeda have been conducting preclinical, proof-of-concept studies for several Fleximer-ADCs against an undisclosed oncology target under a research license to Mersana's Fleximer-ADC technology.

Option already exercised for first drug

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