On April 3, 2017 AVEO Oncology (NASDAQ:AVEO) reported receipt of a $500,000 milestone payment from CANbridge Life Sciences Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing western drug candidates in China and North Asia, related to a technology transfer milestone for AV-203, AVEO’s clinical-stage ErbB3 (HER3) inhibitory antibody candidate (Press release, AVEO, APR 3, 2017, View Source [SID1234518416]). AV-203 has demonstrated preclinical activity in a number of different tumor models including breast, head and neck, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. CANbridge is planning clinical development of AV-203 in squamous cell esophageal cancer as its initial indication. Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo! "Receipt of this milestone payment from CANbridge reflects continued progress by our partner to engineer the manufacturing process for AV-203 in an effort to develop an antibody manufacturing process suitable for commercialization," said Michael Bailey, president and chief executive officer of AVEO. "We look forward to continued progress in this program, and with the balance of our partnered pipeline, including AV-380, a potentially disease modifying treatment for cachexia which is partnered with Novartis, and ficlatuzumab in development for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and acute myeloid leukemia, which is partnered with Biodesix. With these programs advancing, we continue to focus on tivozanib, including continuing our execution of the TIVO-3 and TiNivo studies for our U.S. pivotal clinical strategy, and support of our licensee, EUSA Pharma, in its response to European regulators."
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In March 2016, AVEO announced an exclusive collaboration and license agreement, granting CANbridge worldwide rights to AV-203, excluding the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Under the terms of the collaboration and license agreement, CANbridge paid AVEO an upfront payment of $1 million, and AVEO is also eligible to receive up to $133 million in reimbursement and milestone payments, assuming the successful achievement of specified development, regulatory and commercialization objectives. The transaction was awarded the 2016 Deal of the Year by RNDer, a leading Chinese publication providing value-added analysis for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies conducting business in China. AVEO has retained North American rights to AV-203 and is also eligible for a tiered royalty, with a percentage range in the low double digits, on net sales of AV-203 in the partnered territories.
AVEO also announced today an update to its financial guidance. The Company believes its recently completed underwritten public offering, which yielded net proceeds of $15.5 million (on gross proceeds of $17.3 million), together with its existing cash resources, would be sufficient to fund its operations into the second quarter of 2018. This guidance excludes any potential partnership milestone payments to or from the Company, potential debt or equity financings, acceleration of existing debt principal payments under the term loan with Hercules which could result from non-compliance with the cash covenant of that agreement, or proceeds from any potential future partnership agreements.
As previously guided, top line data from the TIVO-3 trial, AVEO’s ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of tivozanib in the third-line treatment of patients with refractory renal cell carcinoma (RCC), is anticipated in the first quarter of 2018.