AstraZeneca, and its global biologics research and development arm MedImmune, have announced a new multi-term agreement with Innate Pharma, building on an existing collaboration, aimed at accelerating each company’s oncology portfolio and bringing new medicines to patients more quickly.

The extended collaboration will enrich AstraZeneca’s immuno-oncology (IO) portfolio with pre-clinical and clinical potential new medicines, it states.

About the agreement

AstraZeneca will obtain full oncology rights to the first-in-class humanised anti-NKG2A antibody, monalizumab, expanding its partnership with Innate from the initial collaboration announced in 2015. AstraZeneca also gains option rights to IPH5201, an antibody targeting CD39, as well as four preclinical molecules from Innate’s pipeline. Innate is licensing the US and EU commercial rights to recently FDA-approved Lumoxiti (moxetumomab pasudotox) for hairy cell leukaemia (HCL).

“Our expanded collaboration with Innate Pharma enables us to further strengthen our leadership in immuno-oncology, and to explore the potential of next-generation immuno-oncology pathways, together with the world-class scientific team of Innate. Today’s agreement also secures the long-term commercialisation of the recently FDA approved rare disease medicine , Lumoxiti, through dedicated focus and investment by Innate Pharma,” said Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer.