Novartis and Xencor to collaboratively develop new cancer therapies

Novartis has announced a new partnership with Xencor on the development of immuno-oncology treatments.

The collaboration will see the companies working to co-develop Xencor's two T-cell engaging bispecific antibodies targeting acute myeloid leukaemia and B-cell malignancies. Novartis will also receive rights to develop four additional programmes and the right to use Xencor's antibody engineering platform to develop up to ten additional antibodies.

Whereas typical monoclonal antibodies target and bind to a single antigen, bispecific antibodies recognise and target two different antigens, making them potentially more effective in targeting complex diseases.

Xencor will receive a $150 million (112.74 million pounds) upfront payment from Novartis, with the companies to equally share the cost of jointly developing two Xencor antibodies targeting the CD3 domain.

Jay Bradner, president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said: "We look forward to working with the Xencor team to advance these programmes in immuno-oncology and to using their antibody engineering platform to develop biotherapeutics for additional diseases."

This comes after the firm recently announced that it will be partnering with the Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop a next-generation antimalarial treatment in the coming months.