Ipsen acquires rights to Foreseen ADC

French drugmaker Ipsen (Euronext: IPN) has entered into an exclusive global licensing agreement for FS001, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) with first-in-class potential, from China-based Foreseen Biotechnology.

FS001 targets a novel tumor-associated antigen that is overexpressed in many solid tumors and plays a critical role in tumor proliferation and metastasis.

Ipsen explained that this novel tumor antigen was identified using Foreseen’s high throughput, integrated translational proteomics, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered screening platforms, to analyze their vast collection of well-characterized clinical tumor samples. FS001 utilized an innovative, stable and cleavable linker coupled to a potent topoisomerase I inhibitor. Preclinical efficacy of FS001 was demonstrated in multidrug resistant cancer models.