Dragonfly Therapeutics Announces Celgene In-license of First Two TriNKET™ Immunotherapy Drug Candidates
Celgene licenses two TriNKET™ immunotherapy drug candidates built by Dragonfly for $24m plus milestones and royalties
WALTHAM, Massachusetts, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc. ("Dragonfly" or the "Company"), today announced it has licensed two TriNKET™ immunotherapy drug candidates to Celgene Corporation and its affiliates ("Celgene") for $12m each plus prospective milestones and royalties. The licenses represent the first two of four hematological cancer targets from the companies' June 2017 collaboration. Today's announcement follows recent news of an expansion of the June 2017 collaboration providing Celgene with the option to license products for an additional four-targets, increasing the total number of collaboration targets between the companies to eight.
"These licenses provide Celgene exclusive worldwide intellectual property rights to the first two products developed for Celgene using Dragonfly's TriNKET technology" said Rupert Vessey, FRCP DPhil, President of Research and Early Development for Celgene Corporation. "Based on the evidence we've seen, we believe these TriNKET drug candidates offer an exciting opportunity to help cancer patients by offering a novel mechanism of action in immune oncology."
"Celgene is excited about the potential for these first TriNKET drug candidates" said Robert Hershberg, MD, PhD, head of Celgene's Business Development and Global Alliances. "While no novel mechanism can be proven until it is fully clinically validated, we are excited about the opportunity these TriNKET drug candidates offer for immunotherapies for patients."
"We are thrilled to hand off two very promising TriNKET drug candidates to Celgene and excited to see them move the candidates forward," said Dragonfly CEO Bill Haney, "The Celgene team have been fantastic collaboration partners over the past 18 months, and we look forward to continuing our efforts to bring potential new immune-oncology treatment options to patients with cancer."
About Dragonfly
Dragonfly Therapeutics is committed to discovering, developing and commercializing therapies that use its novel TriNKET™ technology to harness the body's innate immune system to bring breakthrough cancer treatments to patients.
For more information visit: www.dragonflytx.com , www.facebook.com/dragonflytherapeutics/, or https://twitter.com/dragonflytx .
Media Contact: Maura McCarthy: maura@dragonflytx.com
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