RXi Pharmaceuticals and MirImmune entered into an exclusive license agreement to use RXi's sd-rxRNA® technology in developing cell-based cancer immunotherapies.
MirImmune will be responsible for all research, development, manufacturing, regulatory, and commercialization activities for the licensed products. It will develop cell-based therapeutics utilizing the sd-rxRNA technology to target immune inhibitory pathways (checkpoints), which are responsible for limiting the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies.
MirImmune also will gain access to RXi's sd-rxRNA and rxRNAori patent families for ex vivo modification of cells for the treatment of cancer. These patents include the composition of the sd-rxRNA and rxRNAori RNAi structures, as well as potential targets for cell-based therapeutics.
RXi will receive an annual licensing fee, clinical milestone payments, sublicensing income, and single digit royalties. Pending MirImmune's achievement of a few gating milestones, RXi will have the right to acquire a double-digit equity stake in MirImmune.
According to Craig Mello, Ph.D., chairman of RXi Pharmaceuticals’ scientific advisory board, “Not only is this collaboration a visionary step forward by RXi because it has the potential to develop cutting edge cell-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy and possibly other unmet medical needs, it also further validates the company's proprietary self-delivering RNAi technology platform.”