Immatics and Bristol Myers Squibb announced that they have entered into a license, development and commercialization agreement for Immatics’ TCR Bispecific candidate, IMA401.

Under the terms of the agreement, Immatics will receive an upfront payment of US $ 150 million as well as up to US $ 770 million in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, in addition to tiered double-digit royalty payments on net sales of IMA401. Immatics retains the options to co-fund U.S. development in exchange for enhanced U.S. royalty payments and/or to co-promote IMA401 in the US.

IMA401 is the most advanced product candidate in Immatics’ TCR Bispecifics pipeline, called TCER (T Cell Engaging Receptors), in which one binding region targets MAGEA4/8, a highly prevalent antigen in multiple solid tumors, and the other region engages and activates T cells. In preclinical proof of concept studies, IMA401 has shown anti-tumor activity with complete remissions in various in vivo tumor models including patient-derived xenograft models. The agreement outlines a development plan under which both companies will collaborate to advance the program through clinical development.

In November 2021, Immatics filed a Clinical Trial Application (CTA) with Paul-Ehrlich-Institute (PEI), the German federal regulatory authority, for the development of IMA401. The clinical trial, which is planned to commence in the first half of 2022, will enroll patients across various solid tumor types.

“We are pleased to expand our collaboration with Immatics to now include IMA401,” said Teri Foy, Senior Vice President, Research and Early Development, Immuno-Oncology and Cell Therapy at Bristol Myers Squibb. “TCERs are an important, emerging modality for solid tumors with the potential for cell therapy-like efficacy in an off-the-shelf platform offering potentially broader patient access. We look forward to advancing IMA401 into the clinic to further assess its potential as an innovative medicine to help patients prevail over serious diseases.”“At Immatics, we are committed to our goal of delivering meaningful clinical benefits to cancer patients, and based on the promising preclinical data, we see remarkable potential for our TCER platform” said Carsten Reinhardt, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Development Officer at Immatics. “We are delighted to extend our existing collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb to the IMA401 program and view this as an important validation of the therapeutic potential of our TCER approach. Bristol Myers Squibb’s global clinical development and commercialization capabilities in oncology make them the ideal partner for the further development of IMA401.”