Sucampo and Numab collaborate on drug discovery

USA-based Sucampo Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SCMP) says its Swiss subsidiary, Sucampo AG, has entered into an R&D collaboration that provides Sucampo with access to Switzerland-based Numab AG’s proprietary technology for the discovery of high-affinity antibodies against certain selected targets. Sucampo will have exclusive commercial rights to any biologic products successfully developed and commercialized in the course of the collaboration.

Under the terms of the deal, Sucampo will provide Numab, a recently-formed privately-held company, with up to 5 million Swiss francs ($6.4 million) as collateral for a loan to Numab from a third party. Sucampo can name up to four targets against which Numab will use its proprietary technology to discover high-affinity antibodies and to develop these to an Investigational New Drug-ready stage. Numab is eligible for FTE-based payments and discovery success-dependent fees. If a biologic is successfully developed, the companies can enter into a license arrangement in which Numab will be entitled to clinical development milestone payments and increasing tiered royalties on net sales. Sucampo will be responsible for clinical development and will retain all commercial rights to any resulting biologic product.

Commenting on the accord, Ryuji Ueno, chairman, chief scientific officer and chief executive of Sucampo, said: “This agreement highlights our deep commitment to developing novel therapeutics that meet unmet medical needs…This agreement also is an opportunity to maximize our knowledge of a variety of targets that result in several large, underserved patient populations. By applying Numab’s antibody technology to these targets, we plan to develop biologic products with a different mechanism of action that will be complementary to the prostone-based compounds we now have in development.”