Sanofi Exercises Option on Second Therapeutic Program with Selecta Biosciences to Develop an Antigen-Specific Immunotherapy B...
May 13 2015 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
- Celiac disease program added to 2012
alliance addressing immune disorders related to food and airborne
allergens
- Selecta eligible to receive payments
totaling up to $300 million as well as up to double digit tiered
royalties on product sales of immune tolerance product for each
program under the alliance
Selecta Biosciences, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology
company developing a novel class of targeted antigen-specific
immune therapies, today announced that, under the terms of an
existing strategic global collaboration, Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and
NYSE: SNY) has exercised its option to an exclusive license to
develop an immunotherapy for the treatment of celiac disease.
In celiac disease patients, the consumption of gluten-containing
food induces harmful immune responses that can lead to abdominal
pain and, in most severe cases, intestinal cancer. This new immune
tolerance program expands activities within the Sanofi-Selecta
collaboration, which is already successfully advancing a novel
immunotherapy for a life-threatening food allergy. The products
resulting from this collaboration will leverage Selecta’s
proprietary Synthetic Vaccine Particle (SVP™) platform, which has
unique capabilities to engineer nanoparticles with the structure
and composition to produce immune tolerance by attenuating the
overactive response to specific antigens.
“Sanofi and Selecta are working together to push toward the
outer barriers of immunotherapy to deliver innovative solutions to
patients. This area is constantly evolving, and with partners like
Selecta, breakthrough medicines may be within our grasp,” said Kurt
Stoeckli, Vice President and Head of Biotherapeutics, Research
& Development at Sanofi.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Selecta is eligible to
receive research support and several pre-clinical, clinical,
regulatory and sales milestones totaling up to $300 million for
this new program in celiac disease. Additionally, Selecta is also
entitled to up to double digit tiered royalties as percentage of
product net sales for any commercialized immunotherapy resulting
from these efforts with Sanofi.
“We are very pleased that Sanofi and Selecta are now
collaborating on three programs for immune tolerance,” said Werner
Cautreels, PhD, Selecta’s President and CEO. “Both Sanofi and
Selecta recognize the tremendous unmet medical needs in addressing
the adverse immune responses leading to allergies and autoimmune
diseases.”
In November 2012, Selecta announced that they had formed a
strategic global collaboration to discover highly targeted,
antigen-specific immunotherapies for life threatening allergies.
Under the agreement, Sanofi obtained a first exclusive license to
develop an immunotherapy designed to abate acute immune responses
against a life threatening food allergen and an option to develop
two additional candidate immunotherapies for allergies and celiac
disease. With the exercise of this option by Sanofi, Selecta and
Sanofi now have two initiatives actively advancing immune tolerance
treatments under the terms of the 2012 agreement. In October 2014,
Selecta and JDRF announced another collaboration with Sanofi to
research novel antigen-specific immune therapies for Type 1
Diabetes.
About Celiac Disease
Celiac Disease is a gluten induced chronic inflammatory disorder
of the small bowel affecting approximately 1% of the population in
the US and Europe causing a wide range of symptoms including
diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss, and hypoproteinemia. Severe
forms of the disease can lead to small intestinal adenocarcinoma.
Gluten-free diet, the only available treatment option, is
ineffective in approximately 30% of patients, has low compliance,
and impairs quality of life in affected patients. The SVP program
for celiac disease is aimed at rebalancing the immune response
specifically to gluten without affecting other functions of the
immune system.
About Selecta
Selecta Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology
company developing novel drugs that use immune modulating
nanomedicines to generate targeted antigen-specific immune
responses to prevent and treat disease. Selecta’s proprietary
Synthetic Vaccine Particle (SVP) platform creates a novel paradigm
in immunotherapeutics and vaccines, enabling completely new
applications while offering the potential of improved efficacy and
safety profiles.
Selecta’s immunomodulatory SVPs can induce antigen-specific
immune tolerance, enabling them to be applied in a variety of
therapeutic areas with large unmet medical need. The company is
focused on three key near-term applications: inhibition of
immunogenicity of biologic therapies, treatment of allergies, and
treatment of autoimmune diseases. Immumogenicity adversely affects
the safety and efficacy profile for many biological therapies, and
is known to have caused the termination of a number of promising
biological therapies in clinical development. Selecta’s SVP is a
product engine that has the potential to unlock the full
therapeutic value of biologic therapies.
Through proprietary products and collaborations with leading
pharmaceutical companies and research organizations, Selecta is
building a pipeline of product candidates to address unmet medical
needs in serious and chronic diseases. Selecta Biosciences, Inc. is
based in Watertown, Massachusetts, USA. For more information,
please visit www.selectabio.com.
For Selecta Media:The Yates NetworkKathryn Morris,
+1-845-635-9828kathryn@theyatesnetwork.comorFor Selecta
Investors:Stern Investor Relations, Inc.Stephanie Ascher,
+1-212-362-1200stephanie@sternir.com
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