Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company, and Bristol-Myers Squibb have signed a collaboration agreement for the discovery, development, and commercialization of immuno-oncology therapies directed toward targets identified in two undisclosed immune checkpoint pathways using Five Prime's proprietary target discovery platform.

Bristol-Myers Squibb will leverage Five Prime's platform to advance its existing immuno-oncology programs by identifying the most viable drug targets for continued research and development. Drug candidates developed against these new and existing targets may be studied either as single agents or in combination with existing or potential Bristol-Myers Squibb immuno-oncology for the development of next generation immuno-oncology therapeutics.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Bristol-Myers Squibb will obtain exclusive, worldwide rights to develop and commercialize products directed toward certain protein targets identified by Five Prime prior to and during the collaboration. Bristol-Myers Squibb will make an upfront payment of $20 million to Five Prime and provide up to $9.5 million in research funding over the course of the research term. Additionally, Bristol-Myers Squibb will make a payment of approximately $21 million to acquire 4.9% of Five Prime's outstanding common stock purchased at approximately a 30% premium. Five Prime will be eligible to receive up to $300 million in future development, regulatory and sales based milestone payments per collaboration target and tiered mid-single-digit rising to low-double-digit royalty payments on net sales of each product commercialized by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Five Prime Therapeutics is focused on discovering and developing novel protein therapeutics for cancer and inflammatory diseases by leveraging a  library of human extracellular proteins and proprietary high-throughput screening technologies to produce new targets for protein therapeutics to be advanced by partners or in the company’s internal pipeline. Five Prime currently has two therapeutics in clinical testing and a third anticipated to enter the clinic by the end of 2014. FP-1039 (GSK3052230) is a fibroblast growth factor (FGF) ligand trap being developed in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to treat multiple solid tumors. A global, multi-arm Phase Ib study of FP-1039 in combination with standard chemotherapy in FGFR1 gene-amplified squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and mesothelioma is underway. A second drug candidate is FPA008, a monoclonal antibody that inhibits colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF1R) activation and is being developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, is in a Phase I trial currently enrolling. FPA144 is a monoclonal antibody that blocks signaling through fibroblast growth factor receptor IIb (FGFR2b) and is glyco-engineered for enhanced antibody-dependent cytotoxicity. FPA144 is expected to begin a Phase I study in gastric cancer by the end of 2014.

Source: Bristol-Myers Squibb