DCx Biotherapeutics Corporation (DCx) has officially announced an agreement with Repare Therapeutics Inc to in-license Repare’s discovery platform including certain program intellectual property, retain talent, acquire lease rights to laboratory facilities in Montreal, and acquire the latter’s laboratory equipment.
Under the agreed terms, DCx will be able to combine its deep expertise in biologics innovation and development with the newly acquired discovery and translational capabilities to develop a new class of Multi-Modal Antibody Drug Conjugates (MM-ADCs) against genetically-defined cancers.
Talk about the whole development on a slightly deeper level, we begin from the fact that DCx will acquire rights to Repare’s proprietary CRISPR, bioinformatics, and machine learning enabled platforms (now known collectively as the MuSic™ Platform). This the company will be able to use for the identification of surfaceome targets specific to genetic lesions in tumors.
Next up, we must get into the how DCx will avail a non-exclusive license to SNIPRx® and STEP2 in support of discovering synthetic lethal and other targets. The company will also secure undisclosed surfaceome targets and antibodies discovered by Repare.
Hold on, we are not done yet, considering we haven’t yet touched upon a piece of detail claiming that DCx will further acquire undisclosed small molecule programs from Repare.
Beyond this, it can expect to welcome more than 20 scientific and support colleagues who, on their part, are going to be well-versed in medicinal chemistry, molecular biology, bioinformatics, analytics, and pharmacology.
Launched out of Amplitude, DCx is actually the sixth company spun out via the former’s innovation platform.
“DCx’s founding vision is to realize the full potential of antibody drug conjugates by improving on the selectivity, potency, and tolerability for this promising class of therapeutics thus leading to improved clinical outcomes such as progression-free survival and overall survival,” said Ali Tehrani, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of DCx Biotherapeutics. “This transaction with Repare is highly synergistic with our expertise and ambitions and accelerates the development of multiple development candidates over the next three years. We are also looking forward to embarking on this journey together with Repare’s world-class preclinical research team that is joining the DCx family.”
Turning our attention towards what Repare stands to get from this deal, the promised lot is understood to include upfront and near-term cash payments, together with equity in DCx, and a nominee to DCx’s board of directors.
Next up; the company will receive out-licensing, clinical, and commercial milestones, as well as low single-digit tiered sales royalties for products developed with Acquired Programs. It will also enjoy royalties associated with out-licensing, clinical, and commercial milestones for products developed with Acquired Targets.
Among other things, we ought to mention how the entire runner builds upon DCx’s own track-record in the context of deconvluting key cellular interdependencies, and therefore, addressing the root causes behind cancer, genetic mutations.
You see, such a mechanism effectively enables the mutation-specific drugging of multiple critical targets to synergistically destroy tumors and induce long-term immune memory. This it does for the purpose of achieving durable therapeutic responses, while simultaneously limiting side effects.
Markedly enough, taking a departure from current ADCs that deliver broadly chemotoxic payloads to a limited set of antibody targets, DCx’s develops MM-ADCs that optimize the synergy between, while targeting the same, genetically-defined intracellular and cell-surface targets.
The objectives for this approach include increasing efficacy, prolonging activity by eliminating escape mechanisms and engaging the immune system, as well as improving tolerability while reducing side effects.
“We are excited with the potential in what DCx can bring to develop next-gen antibody drug conjugates and how this Transaction, together with a world-class management and scientific team, can meaningful propel these efforts forward,” said Jean-François Pariseau, DCx Board Chair and Partner at Amplitude Ventures.
