Zymeworks leaps as it expand bispecific antibody deal

Canadian drug developer Zymeworks (TSX: ZYME) saw its share leap 15% in after-hours trading on Monday, after it announced that Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) has exercised its right to expand its collaboration agreement for the research, development, and commercialization of bispecific antibody therapeutics using Zymeworks’ Azymetric platform.

“The team at Celgene has made excellent progress developing bispecific and multifunctional therapeutic candidates built on our industry-leading Azymetric platform and we are delighted to expand and continue our relationship with them,” commented Ali Tehrani, Zymeworks’ president and chief executive, adding: “We are proud of the fact that all six of our pharma partnerships involving the Azymetric platform remain active and are advancing innovative therapeutics towards clinical trials.”

Under the terms of the original collaboration agreement signed in 2014 which enabled Celgene to research and develop multiple bispecific antibodies based on the Azymetric platform, Celgene has now exercised its right to increase the number of potential products it can develop and commercialize from eight to ten, and extended the research program term by two years.

Zymeworks will receive an expansion fee and is now eligible to receive up to $164 million in development and commercial milestones for each of up to 10 products plus royalties on worldwide sales. In total, Zymeworks is now eligible to receive up to $1.64 billion in future payments for the entire collaboration.