Colby and MannKind announce cancer immunotherapy agreement

Colby and MannKind have revealed details of a new licensing agreement between the two companies.

Colby Pharmaceutical Company and MannKind Corporation have announced a new licensing agreement relating to the latter's novel MKC1106 active immunotherapy programmes.

Under the terms of the agreement, Colby will have exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise disease-specific antigen compounds and intra-lymph node delivery technologies, based on MannKind's programmes.

At present, these are being developed for a number of human cancers, including melanoma, prostate and haematological disorders.

Colby will pay upfront and potential milestone payments of approximately $140 million, as well as tiered royalties on sales of products.

Dr David Zarling, Colby's chief executive officer, said the company was "very keen" on the opportunity.
"We have good reason to believe that our collaboration will uncover other more optimal cancer vaccine modalities and synergies with novel adjuvants not yet realised by others working on cancer vaccines and immune activation," Dr Zarling said.

He also asserted his confidence that MannKind's intra-lymph node injections and Colby's new immune activators "will prove to be important for rational cancer immunotherapies".