Roche Signs Potential $1B ADC Cancer Deal with China’s MediLink

 The antibody-drug conjugate market is picking up right where it left off in 2023 as Roche has made a potential $1 billion deal with China-based MediLink Therapeutics to develop a next-generation ADC in oncology, the Chinese biotech announced on Tuesday.

Under the worldwide collaboration and license agreement, Roche is being granted exclusive global rights for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of MediLink’s ADC candidate, YL211, which targets mesenchymal epidermal transforming factor (c-MET) for treating solid tumors.

Roche will pay MediLink upfront and near-term milestone payments totaling $50 million. The biotech could also be eligible for nearly $1 billion in potential milestone payments for development, registration commercialization and royalties on future net sales.

While MediLink will work with Roche’s China Innovation Center to push the candidate into Phase I clinical trials, Roche will be solely responsible for developing and commercializing the treatment globally.

MediLink touts its YL211 ADC as a receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) family member that specifically targets c-Met, which is “closely associated” with tumor formation, aggressive growth and metastasis. The company has also stated that the candidate has shown promising efficacy and safety in preclinical tumor models and other experiments.

The Roche-MediLink agreement comes as other prominent players in the biotech world have been securing ADC deals.

In October 2023, MediLink announced it entered into a collaboration and worldwide license agreement with BioNTech worth $1 billion to develop a next-generation ADC candidate against Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 3.

Last week, Korea-based LegoChem Biosciences agreed with Janssen Biotech to develop and commercialize a Trop2-directed ADC, with LCB netting $100 million front, an option exercise payment of $200 million and able to receive up to $1.7 billion in total milestone payments. In turn, Janssen will get access to develop and commercialize the candidate LCB84.  

One of the largest deals of 2023 saw Pfizer acquire ADC pioneer Seagen for $43 billion and net approval from European and U.S. regulators toward the end of the year. In late November 2023, AbbVie purchased ImmunoGen for $10.1 billion and its ADC ovarian cancer treatment Elahere. Eli Lilly, GSK, Merck and Daiichi Sankyo also made investments in the hot ADC market last year. 

https://www.biospace.com/article/roche-signs-potential-1b-adc-deal-with-china-s-medilink/