Oxford BioTherapeutics seals deal with headline value of £240M with Glaxo

Collaboration

Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT) has sealed a strategic alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) plc to discover, develop and commercialise therapeutic antibodies for treating cancer.

Under the alliance, GSK will develop antibodies against selected OBT targets. In parallel OBT will develop one of its own monoclonal antibodies through to clinical proof of concept, at which point GSK will have an exclusive option to in-license it.

OBT will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and will be eligible for up to a total of £244 million upon the achievement of specified discovery, development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones.

In addition, OBT will receive double-digit royalties on sales of any product and may opt to carry forward any programmes that GSK chooses not to develop further.  

The alliance integrates OBT’s expertise in the discovery of oncology targets and antibodies with GSK’s antibody discovery and development capabilities. OBT’s antibody discovery platform builds on its OGAP proteomic database, one of the world’s largest proprietary human protein collections. This includes data on 5,000 cancer membrane proteins, combined with disease relevant genomic and clinical information derived from human blood and cancer tissue studies.  

Christian Rohlff, CEO of OBT, said, “This strategic alliance provides important validation of our scientific expertise in the fields of cancer target discovery and broadens OBT’s antibody pipeline.”

“In addition, we gain access to significant non-dilutive financing to support the development of our pipeline of fully human therapeutic antibodies.”

OBT was formed in 2004 around the remnants of Oxford GlycoSciences plc, one of the early biotech spinouts from Oxford University. The company was acquired and split up by Celltech plc in 2003. Celltech was subsequently acquired by Belgian pharma company, UCB.