Astra Zeneca paid $63 Million upfront to licence a P1 candidate6 Jun 2024 10:21
The exciting news for SAR shareholders is that last year Astra Zeneca entered in to an agreement with KYM Biosciences for its Phase I clinical candidate CMG901. Astra Zeneca paid an upfront payment of $63m and agreed additional milestone development and sales-related payments of up to $1.1bn. i.e. If the P1a results for SDC-1801 are as encouraging as we expect then it will be of interest to the likes of Astra Zeneca. They certainly have a track record of buying in to P1 clinical trials, especially once the topline data has been released. That's what we are epecting from Oz in Q2, so it it not unreasonable to expect positive licencing action soon.
In addition to the KYM deal last it is also interesting that Astra Zeneca also paid $185 Million to Eccogene - upfront in cash - 5 months ago following encouraging preliminary results from Eccogene's Phase I trial of ECC5004. The deal was structured in such a way that Eccogene could also receive up to an additional $1.825bn in future clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestones and tiered royalties.
Ofcourse, Astra Zeneca could also make a takeover approach for SAR if the SDC-1801 if the preliminary results are good. e.g. TeneoTwo was acquired 18 months ago by Astra Zeneca for its Phase I clinical-stage T-cell engager TNB-486. In summary, Astra Zeneca paid $100m cash up front for TeneoTwo plus R&D-related milestone payments of up to $805m and additional contingent commercial-related milestone payments of up to $360m. i.e. A total of up to $1.265 billion.
There is so much M&A activity these days with phase 1 candidates, both in on-licencing and takeover transactions. Sareum could be next.