Avacta announces license agreement with POINT Biopharma

Avacta Group plc, the developer of innovative cancer therapies and diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer^® and pre|CISION™ platforms, has announced that it has entered into a license agreement with POINT Biopharma Inc. (“POINT”), to provide access to Avacta’s pre|CISION technology for the development of tumor-activated radiopharmaceuticals.

The radiopharmaceutical market is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2025 and there is a substantial opportunity to grow much faster if safety and tolerability of these effective treatments can be improved. POINT Biopharma is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing radioligands as precision medicines for the treatment of cancer.

Avacta’s proprietary pre|CISION chemistry can be used to modify a radioligand drug to form a tumor-activated prodrug. The prodrug form is inactive in circulation until it enters the tumor micro-environment where it is activated by an enzyme called fibroblast activation protein (or FAP) that is present in high abundance in most solid tumors but not in healthy tissue. Avacta’s pre|CISION technology therefore has the potential to improve the tolerability and achieve better clinical outcomes for patients compared with standard radiopharmaceuticals by targeting the radioligand treatment more specifically to cancer cells.

The agreement provides POINT with an exclusive license to the pre|CISION technology for use in the first radiopharmaceutical prodrug the company intends to develop, and a non-exclusive license to the pre|CISION platform for the development of a broader pipeline of FAP-activated radiopharmaceuticals.

Under the terms of the agreement, Avacta will receive an upfront fee and development milestones for the first radiopharmaceutical prodrug totaling $9.5 million. Avacta will also receive milestone payments for subsequent radiopharmaceutical prodrugs of up to $8 million each, a royalty on sales of FAP-activated radiopharmaceuticals by POINT and a percentage of any sublicensing income received by POINT.

Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Avacta Group, commented: “I am very pleased to have established this partnership with POINT that allows Avacta to exploit its pre|CISION platform in a therapeutic area outside of our in-house focus on chemotherapy prodrugs”.

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