Strategic immuno-oncology co-development alliance for Servier

USA-headquartered biotech firm Pieris Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: PIRS) and independent French pharma company Servier today announced a broad collaboration in immuno-oncology (IO).

Despite the impressive clinical efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors to date, a majority of patients fail to respond to approved therapies. The collaboration seeks to address this significant unmet clinical need by advancing a series of novel molecules, including multiple dual immune checkpoint blockade approaches.

Under the collaboration, Pieris and Servier will initially pursue five bispecific therapeutic programs, led by Pieris' PRS-332 program, a potentially best-in-class PD-1-targeting bispecific checkpoint inhibitor. Pieris and Servier will jointly develop PRS-332 and split commercial rights geographically, with Pieris retaining all commercial rights in the USA and Servier having commercial rights in the rest of the world. The four additional committed programs have been defined, which may combine antibodies from the Servier portfolio with one or more Anticalin proteins based on Pieris' proprietary platform to generate innovative immuno-oncology bispecific drug candidates. The collaboration may be expanded by up to three additional therapeutic programs. Pieris has the option, at   a predefined time point, to co-develop and retain commercial rights in the United States for up to three programs beyond PRS-332, while Servier will be responsible for development and commercialization of the 4 other programs  worldwide.