Immunogen, Novartis To Work Together To Develop Cancer Drugs

US based Immunogen Inc. and Swiss company Novartis AG announced on Monday that they have signed a partnership deal to develop cancer drugs based on the technology of the American biotech company.

According to the deal, Novartis will make an upfront payment of 45 million dollars to Immunogen. Milestone payments are also expected and can amount to about 200 million dollars per target achieved, but the amount has not been disclosed, according to Immunogen.

Dan Junius, the Chief Executive of Immunogen, said that the deal "reflects the industry wide interest in our technology and certainly provides more financial flexibility to us".

Immunogen, which has signed similar collaboration deals with leading pharmaceutical firms, had around 110 million dollars in cash as of the end of June, according to Mr. Junius.

As part of this new deal, Immunogen will work with Novartis to develop antibody drug conjugates for cancer therapy, the latest technology which is considered better than conventional chemotherapy.  

Immunogen is already working with French company Sanofi-Aventis SA and Swiss drug manufacturer Roche Holding AG. The partnership with Roche involves testing breast cancer medicine T-DM1, which if approved can prove to be a big hit with over 1 billion dollars in sales.

According to Mr. Junius, Immunogen's technology is rapidly growing in popularity and that the company would seek collaboration to take the technology forward, but such partnerships shouldn't interrupt Immunogen's capability to produce drug compounds of its own.