Two new deals for France's Innate

Shares of French Innate Pharma (Euronext Paris: IPH) rose 10.6% to 14.10 euros by mid-morning after the company announced two important licensing deals.

First, Innate Pharma announced it has entered into a research collaboration and licensing agreement with French pharma major Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) to apply Innate’s new proprietary technology to the development of innovative bispecific antibody formats engaging natural killer (NK) cells to kill tumor cells through the activating receptor NKp46.

Sanofi and Innate Pharma will work together on the generation and evaluation of up to two bispecific NK cell engagers, using technology from Innate Pharma and Sanofi’s proprietary bispecific antibody format as well as tumor targets. Under the terms of the licence agreement, Sanofi will be responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of products resulting from the research collaboration. Innate Pharma will be eligible to up to 400 million ($436.4 million) in development and commercial milestone payments as well as royalties on net sales.