French Sanofi and German BioNTech are partnering up to make five new cancer immunotherapies that will revolutionize cancer treatment. The agreement states that BioNTech will reieve $60 million near-term milestones, more than $300 million in development, regulatory and commercial milestones, and other payments per products including tiered royalties. BioNTech will also be able to co-develop and commercialize three of the five immunotherapy treatments with Sanofi with the EU and the United States.
BioNTech is a world leader when it comes to synthetic mRNA therapeutics, and according to the license agreement, the collaboration will use their formulation technology, which allows for targeted mRNA delivery in vivo, to make theses 5 new cancer immunotherapies. BioNTech will be supplying part of the mRNA material needed for development directly from their in-house GMP manufacturing unit. The BioNTech CEO commented that the collaboration is groundbreaking and that it will help develop an entirely new tier of cancer immunotherapy treatments that will change the way cancer is treated permanently.
Cancer immunotherapy, which consists of a few different kinds of treatments including cancer vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, interferons and interleukins that which help the body fight cancer with its own components, either taken from the patient themselves or processed in a lab. In recent years, immunotherapy has shown a lot of promise in curing cancer, and this new partnership between Sanofi and BioNTech is sure to bring a unique therapeutic modality in immuno-oncology.
