Sanofi and IGM Biosciences, Inc. announced the signing of an exclusive worldwide collaboration agreement to create, develop, manufacture, and commercialize IgM antibody agonists against three oncology targets and three immunology/inflammation targets. Engineered IgM antibodies represent a new class of potential therapeutics that combine the multi-valency of IgM antibodies possessing 10 binding sites compared to conventional IgG antibodies having only 2 target binding sites.
John Reed, M.D., Ph.D.
Global Head of Research and Development, Sanofi
“We look forward to this collaboration with IGM Biosciences, a pioneer in a new class of antibody medicines for the treatment of cancer, immunology, and inflammatory diseases. The IGM Biosciences technology platform offers an exciting approach to developing high-avidity IgM antibodies that can efficiently bind and stimulate the activity of cell surface receptors. This unique platform has the potential to overcome historical limitations of conventional IgG antibodies when seeking agonists of some classes of receptors.”
Fred Schwarzer
Chief Executive Officer of IGM Biosciences
“Sanofi is a global leader in the development and commercialization of innovative therapies, and we welcome the addition of their extensive expertise and resources in expanding and accelerating the development of our IgM antibody platform across multiple areas of high unmet need. This partnership builds on an existing research collaboration with Sanofi and is a key step towards our goal of unlocking the full breadth of potential for this important new class of therapeutics. We are pleased to share this vision with Sanofi and look forward to working together on these six potentially first- and best-in-class programs.”