China’s InnoCare, Incyte Enter Collaboration And License Deal for Monoclonal Antibody in Greater China

On August 16th, Chinese-based InnoCare and Incyte announced that Incyte and a subsidiary of InnoCare have entered a collaboration and license agreement for Incyte’s monoclonal antibody tafasitamab.  

According to the agreement, Incyte will receive $35 million upfront payments from InnoCare, plus milestone payments worth up to $82.5 million for the commercialization and development of tafasitamab in Greater China.

Acquiring Incyte’s Newly FDA-approved CD19 Therapy    

Tafasitamab, sold under the brand name Monjuvi, is a humanized Fc-modified cytolytic CD19 targeting monoclonal antibody therapy. It was recently approved by the USFDA in July 2020 for use in refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DBLCL).

 Tafasitamab was originally developed by US biotech company Xencor. In 2010, Xencor granted exclusive worldwide rights of tafasitamab to MorphoSys. In January 2020, MorphoSys and Incyte entered into a licensing deal to further commercialize tafasitamab globally. Incyte has exclusive commercialization rights of tafasitamab outside the United States.

Incyte’s new partner, InnoCare, is equipped with Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor orelabrutinib which has received breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA. The addition of tafasitamab to InnoCare’s pipeline is mainly strategic. According to InnoCare, it will test tafasitamab in combination with orelabrutinib, in hopes that the combination will boost the competitiveness of tafasitamab over other CAR-T rival therapies for DBLCL.

“The strategic collaboration with Incyte will not only enhance our strength in the field of hematology and oncology, but also offer us good opportunity to explore the potential clinical benefit of our BTK inhibitor orelabrutinib in combination with tafasitamab,” said Dr. Jasmine Cui, Co-founder, Chairwoman, and CEO of InnoCare.

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Kathy Huang

We are, and will remain, perpetual newbies. - Kevin Kelly