Ono Enters into a Drug Discovery Collaboration Agreement with Adimab to Discover Novel Antibody Drugs in the Oncology Field

OSAKA, Japan, Sept. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan; President and CEO: Gyo Sagara; "Ono") today announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration agreement with Adimab, LLC (Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA; CEO: Philip Chase; "Adimab"), the global leader in the discovery and optimization of fully human monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, to discover and develop innovative antibody drugs in the oncology field.

Under the terms of the agreement, Adimab will discover novel therapeutic antibodies against multiple targets selected by Ono and generate bispecific antibody product candidates. Ono will evaluate and develop such candidates at the pre-clinical and clinical stages.
Ono will have an option to obtain exclusive rights to globally develop, manufacture and commercialize the candidates to be generated through this collaboration. Ono will pay to Adimab an up-front payment, R&D funding, success-based milestone on research, clinical development and regulatory progress, as well as tiered royalties based on net sales.

"We are actively working to create biologics like antibodies in order to address unmet medical needs for a wide range of diseases including cancers. We are very pleased to collaborate with Adimab this time in the oncology area and expect that their multi-specific antibody engineering technologies will create potential novel bispecific antibody candidates," said Dr. Toichi Takino, Senior Executive Officer / Executive Director, Discovery and Research of Ono. "We believe that this collaboration will enhance the creation of our targeted antibody products and bring them for patients with cancers as soon as possible."

"We are very pleased to be able to partner with Ono Pharmaceuticals based on our technology in antibody discovery and bispecific antibody generation. Adimab has more than 105 partners across the world, and we're thrilled to add Ono to our partners list," said Guy Van Meter, Chief Business Officer of Adimab. "From now on, we will utilize our technology to collaborate with Ono to create therapeutic antibodies so that we can provide cancer patients with innovative antibody drugs."

About Adimab, LLC
Adimab is the leading provider of therapeutic antibody discovery and engineering technologies. This includes naïve discovery from synthetic libraries in yeast or B cells (mice and humans), antibody engineering and optimization, multi-specific antibody engineering, and a portfolio of proprietary CD3 antibodies licensed non-exclusively for bispecific applications. Since 2009, Adimab has partnered with over 105 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, generating more than 475 therapeutic programs, 60 clinical programs, and its first approved product. The Adimab technology has been transferred and implemented at Biogen, GSK, Lilly, Merck, Novo Nordisk, and Takeda.

Adimab's integrated antibody discovery and engineering platform provides unprecedented speed from antigen to purified, full-length human IgGs. Adimab offers fundamental advantages by delivering diverse panels of therapeutically relevant antibodies that meet the most demanding standards for affinity, epitope coverage, species cross-reactivity, and developability. Adimab enables its partners to rapidly expand their biologics pipelines through a broad spectrum of technology access arrangements. For more information, visit http://www.adimab.com.

SOURCE Ono Pharmaceutical Co.