Takeda gets rights to Seattle's brentuximab and picks Pfizer for Actos in China; and Amgen licenses diabetes drug

A batch of drug licensing deals were announced yesterday and today between pharmaceutical majors and with biotechs, including developmental and already marketed products.

Just a few days after being ditched by Swiss drug major Roche on the development of its lymphoma drug candidate dacetuzumab (The Pharma Letter December 14), US biotechnology firm Seattle Genetics has signed a deal with Japanese drug giant Takeda and its US subsidiary Millennium, to globally develop and commercialize brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35).

Under the collaboration, Seattle Genetics will receive an upfront payment of $60 million and retains full commercialization rights for brentuximab vedotin in the USA and Canada. The Takeda group will have exclusive rights to commercialize the product candidate in all countries other than these. Seattle Genetics is also entitled to receive progress- and sales-dependent milestone payments in addition to tiered double-digit royalties based on net sales of brentuximab vedotin within Takeda's licensed territories. Milestone payments to Seattle Genetics could total more than $230 million.

Seattle Genetics and the Takeda group will jointly fund worldwide development costs on a 50:50 basis' with the latter's contribution over the first three years of the collaboration expected to be at least $75 million. In Japan, Takeda will be solely responsible for development costs.

Brentuximab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting CD30 that is in late-stage clinical trials for the treatment of relapsed and refractory Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). Data from a pivotal Phase II trial of the drug in relapsed or refractory HL, which is fully enrolled, are expected in the second half of 2010. The trial is being conducted under a special protocol assessment with the US Food and Drug Administration and is designed to provide the basis for regulatory submissions in the USA and Europe in 2011.

Amgen gains rights to ARRY-403

Meantime, Array BioPharma has entered an agreement granting fellow USA-based Amgen exclusive worldwide rights to its small-molecule glucokinase activator program, including ARRY-403, currently being tested in a Phase I clinical trial in patients with type 2 diabetes.  

Under the terms of the a deal, Array will receive an upfront $60 million and additional contingent payments for certain clinical and commercial milestones. Array is responsible for completing the Phase I trial for ARRY-403. Amgen is responsible for future clinical development and commercialization for ARRY-403 and any resulting back-up compounds, with Array having an option to co-promote in the USA. Array will receive double digit royalties on sales of ARRY-403. In addition, Amgen will fund an agreed number of full time Array employees as part of a two-year research collaboration intended to identify and advance second-generation glucokinase activators

Finally, Takeda has entered into an agreement under which global drug behemoth Pfizer in China will co-promote the firm's blockbuster diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone HCl) with Tianjin Takeda Pharmaceuticals, for the treatment of type 2 diabetics. Pfizer's Chinese affiliate will receive a fixed ratio of Actos net sales. Previously, the drug was sold in China by Tianjin Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a joint venture of Takeda Pharmaceutical and Tianjin Lisheng Pharmacetical, a Chinese company.