Boehringer Ingelheim and Xencor enter a collaboration agreement

Xencor, Inc., a company using its proprietary Protein Design Automation® (PDA) platform technology to engineer next-generation antibodies, and Boehringer Ingelheim announced today a collaboration agreement for certain Xencor biosuperior monoclonal antibodies. Under the terms of the agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim will provide all manufacturing and product supply from preclinical through Phase 1 development. Xencor is responsible for preclinical and clinical studies and retains all development and commercial rights to products under the agreement. Upon successful advancement of clinical programs beyond Phase 1 development, Boehringer Ingelheim has certain manufacturing rights to supply clinical and commercial material to Xencor.

“Xencor has developed a deep portfolio of biosuperior antibodies with the potential for superior clinical and commercial performance, and this collaboration agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim allows us to establish an important relationship with the leading global contract manufacturer of biologics,” said Bassil Dahiyat, Ph.D., president and CEO of Xencor. “Xencor and Boehringer Ingelheim will share the financial risk in early preclinical and clinical development with the incentive of sharing in future success of the programs.”

“We are delighted to start this collaboration with Xencor. It reflects one of our new business models in the contract manufacturing in which both parties are enabled to focus on their core competencies”, stated Corporate Senior Vice President Simon Sturge at Boehringer Ingelheim Biopharmaceuticals. “We are convinced that this creates a win-win situation for both parties.”

Xencor’s lead biosuperior compound is an anti-TNF antibody engineered using the company’s proprietary Xtend™ antibody engineering technology for increasing antibody half-life. Xencor expects to initiate a Phase 1 trial in 2013 potentially resulting in key human pharmacokinetic data validating Xtend technology.