MacroGenics said today it has regained full global rights to the Phase I cancer compound enoblituzumab (MGA271), after Servier opted not to exercise its option to develop and commercialize the B7-H3-targeting monoclonal antibody in Europe and other countries under a four-year-old collaboration.

That collaboration generated a $20 million upfront payment from Servier and could have resulted in up to $450 million for MacroGenics.

MacroGenics said it intended to advance enoblituzumab and two other potential therapies targeting B7-H3—a member of the B7 family of immune regulators—for which it also has global development and commercialization rights.

The therapies have three different and complementary mechanisms of action targeting B7-H3, an immunomodulatory molecule expressed in a broad range of tumor types. The company’s lead B7-H3 program, enoblituzumab, is the subject of clinical studies  both as monotherapy and in combination with either ipilimumab or pembrolizumab.

The second clinical program, MGD009, is a bispecific Dual-Affinity Re-Targeting (DART) molecule designed to target tumors expressing B7-H3 by recruiting and expanding T cells at the tumor site. A third program, now in preclinical development, is an antibody-drug conjugate directed against solid tumors expressing B7-H3.

“Servier’s decision enables us to integrate development and commercial strategies across these assets in the future,” MacroGenics president and CEO Scott Koenig, M.D., Ph.D., said in a statement.

Enoblituzumab is being assessed in patients with a variety of tumor types in three clinical studies, including a monotherapy trial as well as in combination with either ipilimumab or pembrolizumab.

Last month, MacroGenics provided an overview of initial clinical data from the ongoing monotherapy trial of enoblituzumab. The company said enoblituzumab was well tolerated, and tumor regression had been observed in heavily-treated patients across different tumor types, including prostate and bladder cancer, as well as in melanoma patients who have progressed following treatment with one or more checkpoint inhibitor therapies. In addition, evidence of T-cell immunomodulatory function had been observed in patients treated with enoblituzumab.

Data from the monotherapy trial will be presented on November at the 2015 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Annual Meeting.

MacroGenics said a separate collaboration with Servier focused on the development of DART molecules will continue and was not affected by the end of the B7-H3 alliance.

Servier and MacroGenics launched their B7-H3 collaboration in November 2011, with Servier paying $20 million upfront for an option to develop and commercialize enoblituzumab in Europe and other countries. MacroGenics retained full development and commercialization rights to enoblituzumab in the U.S. as well as Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and India under the accord.

Had Servier exercised its option, it would have paid MacroGenics an undisclosed fee which, when combined with the upfront payment and early development milestones, would have totaled $60 million. MacroGenics stood to gain up to an additional $390 million in clinical, regulatory, and commercialization milestones, plus tiered double-digit sales royalties.

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