F-Star & Merck Serono to Collaborate on Novel Targeted Biologics

F-Star GmbH recently announced that a research, license, and commercialization agreement was signed with Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, for the discovery of new antibody-derived therapeutics against inflammatory disease targets using F-Star’s Modular Antibody Technology.

Under the terms of the agreement, Merck Serono will nominate up to three therapeutic targets, and the parties will collaborate to jointly discover mono-specific Fc-based targeted biologics (Fcabs) and bi-specific IgG-based targeted biologics (mAb2) for which Merck KGaA will have exclusive worldwide development and commercialization rights. F-Star will receive an initial technology access fee and research-based funding and is eligible to receive additional license fees, development, regulatory, and commercialization milestones, which in aggregate, could reach $673 million, as well as undisclosed tiered royalties on product sales. Further details of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We are very pleased to have completed this agreement with Merck Serono,” said Dr. Kevin FitzGerald, Chief Executive Officer of F-Star. “Merck Serono Ventures has proved to be a supportive venture investor in F-Star, and we are now excited to expand the relationship to include collaborative discovery and development projects. F-Star has developed novel technology for the discovery of targeted biologics that offer significant improvements over conventional antibodies. This agreement builds on F-Star’s strategy to develop and demonstrate the therapeutic potential of our proprietary technology through advancing our own pipeline as well as through a limited number of very selective research collaborations.”

“We are very pleased to see our investment in F-Star through Merck Serono Ventures mature into a strategic collaboration, which reinforces our commitment to deliver innovative treatments in the area of inflammatory diseases,” said Susan Herbert, Head of Portfolio Development at Merck Serono. “We believe that F-Star’s Modular Antibody Technology has the potential to offer important functional advantages over conventional antibodies and will potentially allow us to generate highly differentiated drugs for patients with so far unmet medical needs.”

F-Star is an antibody-engineering company based in Vienna, Austria, and Cambridge, UK. The company develops improved therapeutic antibodies and antibody fragments based on its Modular Antibody Technology, which allows the introduction of additional antigen-binding sites into antibodies and antibody fragments by engineering the non-CDR loops of antibody domains. Using Modular Antibody Technology F-Star generates antibody fragments that have full antibody functionality and long half-life but are much smaller in size (Fcab) and full-sized antibodies with additional functionality or bispecificity (mAb2 ).