Vir, Gilead Partner on Novel T-Cell Engager Discovery

Editor’s Take: T-cell engagers with potent anti-tumor activity may be able to address areas of high unmet need.

Vir Biotechnology announced a collaboration and license agreement with Gilead Sciences to discover and engineer T-cell engager (TCE) development candidates.

These three novel dual-masked TCE candidates, using Vir’s PRO-XTEN platform, target selected solid tumor-associated antigens. The agreement gives Gilead exclusive license to develop and commercialize the TCEs.

Gilead Gets to Select Candidates

That license also grants Gilead the right to nominate and advance candidates; Vir is responsible for discovery, design, and optimization.

Vir is eligible to receive up to $135 million in upfront and near-term preclinical milestone payments. However, the company could earn much more—as much as $1.74 billion—in further development, regulatory, and commercial milestones.

Vir brings to the collaboration its deep expertise in TCE discovery and protein engineering. In addition, not only will Vir use the PRO-XTEN technology, but also its dAIsY (data AI structure and antibodY) platform. This permits rapid, multiparameter optimization of high-quality TCEs.

Vir Promises Wide TCE Versatility

According to Vir, these TCEs will have potent anti-tumor activity plus a wide therapeutic index deployed across solid tumor targets.

This, in turn, allows the collaboration between Vir Biotechnology and Gilead to address areas of high unmet need.

“We believe TCEs have a powerful role to play to treat cancer,” Vir President and CEO Marianne De Backer said. “This collaboration with Gilead provides an opportunity to generate multiple differentiated candidates aimed at difficult-to-address solid tumors … [It] provides further external validation of Vir Biotechnology’s integrated discovery capabilities and the broad potential of the PRO-XTEN platform.”

Meanwhile, Gilead Sciences Executive Vice President, Research, Flavius Martin, MD, looks forward to the combination of the two companies’ capabilities. Martin highlighted Gilead’s “extensive development expertise and focus on next-generation immunotherapies” in oncology.

“Together with Vir Biotechnology, we seek to bring meaningful innovative therapeutics to patients,” Martin said.