Xencor Licenses Protein Variants to Lilly
Eli Lilly has exercised its option to develop one or more therapeutic proteins created by Xencor, a privately held biotech company, from Monrovia, CA, under their collaboration.
Eli Lilly has exercised its option to develop one or more therapeutic proteins created by Xencor, a privately held biotech company, from Monrovia, CA, under their collaboration.
Xencor used its proprietary Protein Design Automation (PDA) technology to optimize the physical and biochemical properties of a therapeutic protein. In less than 12 months, Xencor created variants of the protein that satisfied specific criteria established prior to the initiation of the project.
Under the terms of the agreement, Xencor granted to Lilly an exclusive, worldwide license to develop and commercialise certain therapeutic proteins derived from the collaboration. Xencor will receive an upfront license fee and is eligible to receive milestone payments in the event Lilly advances one or more candidates into development, as well as royalties on sales of licensed products.
'We are delighted that Lilly has licensed the protein variants and associated technology for further development,' said Bassil Dahiyat, president and ceo of Xencor. 'In less than a year, we created a suite of protein variants that greatly improved the physical properties of this therapeutic protein, including its expression level, thereby enabling the further development of this program. The license grant to Lilly furthers our strategy to build a broad pipeline of optimised protein drugs internally and with strategic partners.'
About Protein Design Automation Technology
PDA technology combines high performance computing with proprietary molecular biology processes and assays to create very broad protein diversity with exquisite control and efficiency. This technology takes advantage of the information embedded in protein structure to optimise key protein properties, such as binding affinity, selectivity, stability and expression level, which are targeted to yield therapeutic proteins with enhanced safety and efficacy in the clinic. This process also creates new intellectual property, continually broadening Xencor's patent portfolio by generating sets of novel protein sequences that are distinct from naturally occurring proteins.