Sanofi Pasteur is teaming up with immunotherapy company Immune Design to develop a herpes simplex virus (HSV) immune therapy. The firms plan to explore different combinations of agents, including leveraging Immune Design’s GLAAS™ drug discovery platform, with the aim of selecting the best potential immune therapy for patients.
Both firms will be contributing candidates as part of this collaboration: Sanofi Pasteur will contribute its clinical-stage replication-defective HSV vaccine candidate HSV-529, and Immune Design will contribute G103, a preclinical trivalent vaccine candidate.
The two companies are planning to develop the products jointly through Phase II trials, at which point Sanofi Pasteur will continue developing the most promising candidate and will be in charge of commercialization; the firm will also pay for all preclinical and clinical development. Meanwhile, Immune Design will provide a specific formulation of glucopyranosyl lipid adjuvant (GLA) from the GLAAS platform at its cost through Phase II studies. Immune Design says it will be eligible to receive future milestone and royalty payments on any product developed from the collaboration.
Immune Design's GLAAS platform was the subject of a deal with Sanofi Pasteur's parent company earlier this year, when Sanofi licensed it to develop new therapeutics for an undisclosed food allergy in a deal said to be worth up to $168 million.
