GERMANY — Boehringer Ingelheim and Covant Therapeutics have embarked on a new and exclusive research collaboration and licensing agreement, with the goal of developing novel cancer immunotherapies.
Specifically, the two companies plan to create a small-molecule inhibitor of RNA editing enzyme ADAR1, which could enhance the effectiveness of other immunotherapies.
Covant pointed out that current immunotherapies are only effective for a minority of patients.
By inhibiting ADAR1, however, it is hoped that the challenge of turning “cold” tumors into “hot” ones, characterized by greater immune cell activity in the tumor microenvironment, can be addressed.
Lamine Mbow, the Global Head of Cancer Immunology and Immune Modulation at Boehringer, called ADAR1 “an exciting immuno-oncology target with significant therapeutic potential.”
The two companies hope to leverage the expertise of Covant’s scientific team and platform to bring next-generation immunotherapies to cancer patients.
According to the terms of the agreement, Covant will oversee the discovery of the ADAR1 small molecule inhibitors, receiving a US$10m upfront payment from Boehringer, as well as up to US$471m in additional milestone payments plus royalties.
Covant Therapeutics is using a state-of-the-art platform that combines high-throughput chemoproteomics-based screening in the native setting with structural proteomics to discover covalent small molecules that replicate the body’s natural regulation of proteins.
The platform is ideally suited for difficult targets, and Covant is exploiting it to create drugs that form covalent bonds with protein targets, which has been a technique employed in pharmaceuticals for over a century.
Covalent drugs technology has gained momentum recently, and the discovery of these drugs has become more systematic.
Covalent drugs have the advantage of having prolonged target engagement, which increases their efficacy. Imbruvica and Tagrisso, for example, are blockbuster drugs that are covalent.
Amgen and Mirati Therapeutics have shown that covalent drugs are the key to breaking down “undruggable” targets like KRAS, and Pfizer also used a covalent drug in its COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid.
As a result, there is growing evidence that covalent drugs can offer a promising approach for reaching protease active sites and targets that have been deemed “undruggable.”
Dr. Ivan Cornella, the Chief Scientific Officer of Covant, said that his team is eager to work alongside Boehringer’s scientists to advance their program against ADAR1, a “key, hard-to-drug immuno-oncology target.”
The partnership between Boehringer Ingelheim and Covant follows the former’s earlier collaboration with 3T Biosciences, a company specializing in developing immunotherapies for cancer treatment.
The agreement with 3T Biosciences was designed to discover and develop next-generation cancer therapies by using Boehringer’s patient-derived T-cell receptor (TCR) data and inputting it into 3T’s discovery platform, known as 3T TRACE.
The goal of this partnership was to identify novel antigen targets for cancer immunotherapies.
Stefan Scherer, the President and Chief Executive Officer of 3T Biosciences, hailed the potential of the 3T TRACE discovery platform, noting that it has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of cancers and other conditions.
By using patient data to discover immunogenic targets, he said, the partnership aims to identify the best possible targets for multiple tumor indications across diverse patient populations.
The partnership between Boehringer Ingelheim and 3T Biosciences builds on the strengths of both companies, with Boehringer contributing its extensive experience in oncology and immuno-oncology, while 3T Biosciences brings its expertise in the development of novel immunotherapies.
With the collaboration with Covant Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim is poised to take another step forward in its efforts to develop next-generation cancer therapies, using innovative approaches that hold promise for patients.
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