Novartis agrees licensing agreement with Ablynx

Published: 13-Jul-2010

Makes upfront payments to Ablynx of €1m


Novartis has been granted licences from Belgian biopharmaceutical firm Ablynx to develop and commercialise further nanobodies against two complex targets.

The Swiss drugmaker has made upfront fees and licence payments to Ablynx of €1m. The two targets were part of the research agreement between the companies signed in 2005 and extended last year.

Novartis will now take responsibility for the continued progress of both programmes and Ablynx will be eligible to receive development based milestone payments and royalties on sales following commercialisation of the products.

Dr Edwin Moses, ceo and chairman of Ablynx, said: ‘The targets are ones where conventional antibody approaches have had limited success. This is further validation of the unique nature of Ablynx’s Nanobody platform, where functional Nanobodies have been successfully generated against GPCRs and ion channels.’

Earlier this year, Ablynx announced that it had a new GPCR targeting development candidate, ALX-0651, an anti-CXCR4 nanobody.

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