Sep 15 2015
NantPharma, LLC, a subsidiary of NantWorks, LLC, having recently acquired the pharmaceutical product nant-paclitaxel (formerly Cynviloq), today announced that it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with Amgen Inc. for AMG 337. Under the agreement, NantPharma acquired the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize worldwide, excluding Japan, Russia and certain other Central Asian countries, AMG 337, a phase 2 small molecule inhibitor of the cell surface enzyme c-Met, an important target for cancer therapy.
Earlier this year, NantWorks and Amgen entered an exclusive license agreement on the immunotherapeutic antibody ganitumab (AMG 479) and this latest agreement extends that strategic relationship to drive precision cancer care with molecules targeting oncogenic drivers of the disease. Financial terms of the AMG 337 license were not disclosed.
“We are excited to enter into this agreement with Amgen to further develop this important therapeutic,” said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder and chief executive officer of NantPharma. “AMG 337 is a potent small molecule with extremely high selectivity for cancer cells expressing c-Met. We believe our tumor molecular profiling capability is uniquely positioned to fulfill the promise of AMG 337 as a drug that targets c-Met and treats patients whose cancer expresses a responsive molecular profile.”
As with ganitumab, patients entering clinical trials conducted by NantPharma will be identified after a comprehensive “omic” analysis from DNA, RNA and protein, and treated based on the resulting molecular profile to maximize clinical outcome and minimize side effects.
"We are pleased to once again collaborate with NantWorks,” said Sean E. Harper, M.D., executive vice president of Research and Development at Amgen. "We believe that NantWorks and its NantOmics proprietary suite of genomic and proteomic capabilities will have the potential to create new therapeutic options for patients whose cancer is driven by the c-Met oncogene."
Besides a driver of cancer, c-Met expression is also thought to be a leading resistance factor to targeted therapies such as the EGFR inhibitor gefitinib and to chemotherapies. The complexity of cell signaling pathways activated by c-Met and functionally-related cell surface receptors and effectors have confounded researchers and clinicians, and are believed to have led to the difficulties in identifying the subset of patients in a timely manner who could benefit from drugs targeting c-Met.
"Through its ecosystem of companies at NantWorks including NantHealth and NantOmics, we believe we are uniquely positioned to address this issue of identifying these difficult subsets of patients and can drive the rapid clinical development of important targeted compounds such as AMG 337 and ganitumab," said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.