Incyte Corporation and MacroGenics, Inc. announced that the companies have entered into an exclusive global collaboration and license agreement for MacroGenics’ MGA012, an investigational monoclonal antibody that inhibits programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). Incyte has obtained exclusive worldwide rights for the development and commercialization of MGA012 in all indications, while MacroGenics retains the right to develop its pipeline assets in combination with MGA012.
“Anti-PD-1 therapy is becoming a mainstay of cancer treatment across multiple tumor types, and we believe the addition of MGA012 to our clinical pipeline is important to fulfilling our long-term development strategy in immuno-oncology. This collaboration with MacroGenics will allow us to rapidly explore the potential clinical benefit of developing MGA012 as a monotherapy and also combining anti-PD-1 therapy with several of our existing portfolio assets,” said Steven Stein, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Incyte.
“We believe Incyte is the ideal partner for MGA012, given its immuno-oncology portfolio and dedication to researching and developing innovative and transformative cancer therapies and we hope that the combined resources of both companies will be able to significantly expand and accelerate the current development efforts for this promising molecule,” said Scott Koenig, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of MacroGenics. “Furthermore, we look forward to exploring the combination of MGA012 with multiple molecules in our own portfolio, including DART molecules for redirected T-cell killing, antibodies with enhanced effector function and ADCs, potentially to provide improved patient benefit.”
Enrollment in the dose escalation portion of the Phase 1 study of MGA012 has been completed and the molecule is currently being evaluated as monotherapy across four solid tumor types in the dose expansion portion of the study. Data from the dose escalation portion of the Phase 1 study have been accepted for poster presentation at the upcoming Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 32nd Annual Meeting in November 2017.