On October 6, 2020 BioAtla, Inc., a global clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of Conditionally Active Biologic (CAB) protein therapeutics, and BeiGene, Ltd. (Nasdaq: BGNE; HKEX: 06160), a commercial-stage biotechnology company, reported that the two companies have revised their previous global co-development and commercialization agreement for BioAtla’s investigational CAB CTLA-4 antibody, BA3071 (Press release, BeiGene, OCT 6, 2020, View Source [SID1234568149]). The previous agreement from April 2019 now becomes a global licensing agreement for BA3071, which was designed to be conditionally activated in the tumor microenvironment in order to reduce systemic toxicity and potentially enable safer combinations with checkpoint inhibitors, such as BeiGene’s anti-PD-1 antibody, tislelizumab.
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Under the amended terms of the agreement, BeiGene will hold an exclusive global license to BA3071 and will be solely responsible for its global clinical development and commercialization and have the right to receive all profits on any future sales net of royalty payments to BioAtla. In addition to the upfront payment BioAtla received upon execution of the original agreement, BioAtla is eligible to receive near-term development and regulatory milestone payments together with increased tiered royalties on worldwide sales. Additional terms of the amended agreement were not disclosed.
"BeiGene is a recognized leader in global clinical development, with broad oncology clinical programs, including tislelizumab, its anti-PD-1 antibody which is approved in China," said Scott Smith, President of BioAtla. "This amended agreement reflects both BeiGene’s commitment to BA3071 and BioAtla’s strategy of rapidly and broadly building our pipeline of innovative CAB oncology candidates. This amended agreement enhances BioAtla’s strategic execution capabilities to support the development of our product pipeline, advance compelling combination therapies, and address markets with strong growth potential and high unmet medical need. BA3071 is expected to become BioAtla’s third CAB candidate in clinical trials along with CAB-AXL-ADC and CAB-ROR2-ADC."
"BioAtla has developed a differentiated proprietary protein discovery and expression platform to generate CABs, which in turn have been applied to BA3071, a novel, investigational CTLA-4 inhibitor that is designed to be conditionally activated in the tumor microenvironment," commented Lai Wang, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Head of Global Research, Clinical Operations & Biometrics and APAC Clinical Development at BeiGene. "The unique nature of BA3071 provides us with an exciting scientific rationale to investigate the combination of this investigational CTLA-4 antibody with our anti-PD-1 antibody, tislelizumab. We look forward to advancing the global development and commercialization of this potentially unique cancer therapy as a single agent or in combination with other therapies."
"We believe that our amended agreement with BeiGene will align and potentially accelerate the global development and potential commercialization of BA3071. BeiGene’s management of the global clinical trials of BA3071 in combination with BeiGene’s tislelizumab may advance the prospects of new combination therapies for the treatment of several cancer indications," stated Jay M. Short, Ph.D., Chairman, CEO and co-founder of BioAtla. "The expanded royalty rates also recognize the exceptional opportunity that CAB technology can provide for novel combination therapies."
About BA3071
BA3071 is a novel, investigational conditionally active CTLA-4 inhibitor. A Phase 1/2 multi-center, open-label study is planned to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity and antitumor activity of BA3071 alone and in combination with BeiGene’s tislelizumab, an anti-PD-1 antibody. The Investigational New Drug application for BA3071 has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is an inhibitory receptor expressed on T cells. The CTLA-4 pathway is a key immune checkpoint pathway that provides a downregulating signal to T cells. The blockade of CTLA-4 is intended to induce an antitumor immune response by promoting the activation and proliferation of tumor-specific T cells. Although inhibition of CTLA-4 has been shown to significantly improve antitumor response, it may also lead to immune attack of healthy cells. To minimize on-target off-tumor toxicity, BioAtla has applied its proprietary CAB technology with the intent to activate binding to the CTLA-4 receptor only on T cells in the tumor microenvironment.
Inhibition of immune checkpoints using anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) or anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibodies has revolutionized the management of patients with advanced-stage melanoma and are among the most promising components of treatment approaches for many other cancers. Employing BioAtla’s proprietary CAB technology, BA3071 is designed to improve the efficacy and safety of anti-CTLA-4 therapy, as a monotherapy and in combination with other therapies, by restricting its activation and that of tumor specific T cells to the tumor microenvironment.
About Conditionally Active Biologics (CABs)
Conditionally Active Biologics are proteins generated using BioAtla’s proprietary protein discovery, evolution and expression technologies. These proteins can be monoclonal antibodies, enzymes and other proteins designed with functions dependent on changes in micro physiological conditions (e.g., pH level, oxidation, temperature, pressure, presence of certain ions, hydrophobicity and combinations thereof) both outside and inside cells.
Studies have shown that cancerous tumors create highly specific conditions at their site that are not present in normal tissue. These cancerous microenvironments are primarily a result of the well understood unique glycolytic metabolism associated with cancer cells, referred to as the Warburg Effect in aerobic cancer cells. CAB proteins are designed to deliver their therapeutic payload and/or recruit the immune response in specific and selected locations and conditions within the body and to be active only in the presence of a particular cellular microenvironment. In addition, the activation is designed to be reversible to repeatedly switch ‘on and off’ should the CAB move from a diseased to a normal cellular microenvironment and vice versa. CABs can be developed in a variety of formats, including antibodies, antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), bispecifics, chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-Ts) and combination therapies.
About Tislelizumab
Tislelizumab is a humanized IgG4 anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody specifically designed to minimize binding to FcγR on macrophages. In pre-clinical studies, binding to FcγR on macrophages has been shown to compromise the anti-tumor activity of PD-1 antibodies through activation of antibody-dependent macrophage-mediated killing of T effector cells. Tislelizumab is the first drug from BeiGene’s immuno-oncology biologics program and is being developed internationally as a monotherapy and in combination with other therapies for the treatment of a broad array of both solid tumor and hematologic cancers.
Tislelizumab is approved by the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) as a treatment for patients with classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma who received at least two prior therapies and for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC) with PD-L1 high expression whose disease progressed during or following platinum-containing chemotherapy or within 12 months of neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatment with platinum-containing chemotherapy.
In addition, three supplemental new drug applications (sNDAs) for tislelizumab have been accepted by the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of the NMPA and are under review, for first-line treatment of patients with advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in combination with chemotherapy, for first-line treatment of patients with advanced non-squamous NSCLC in combination with chemotherapy, and for previously treated unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
Currently, 16 potentially registration-enabling clinical trials are being conducted in China and globally, including 12 Phase 3 trials and four pivotal Phase 2 trials.
Tislelizumab is not approved for use outside of China.