Cullinan Therapeutics is paying $20 million upfront for a BCMAxCD3 bispecific T-cell engager that the biotech plans to pair with its existing CD19 candidate.
In return for the ex-China rights to its new addition, called velinotamig, Cullinan has agreed to pay Genrix Bio the upfront fee followed by up to $292 million in development and regulatory milestones, up to an additional $400 million in sales-based milestones and potential tiered royalties.
Genrix has already tested velinotamig in almost 50 patients with multiple myeloma, where the drug has demonstrated “potential best-in-class efficacy,” Cullinan explained in a June 4 release. The next step is for Chongqing-based Genrix to launch a phase 1 study of velinotamig in its home territory of China in autoimmune disease, before passing the drug to Cullinan for further clinical development.
Cullinan CEO Nadim Ahmed suggested that as a BCMAxCD3 bispecific T-cell engager, velinotamig could complement the company’s CD19xCD3 T-cell engager CLN-978, which is being evaluated in systemic lupus erythematosus.
“Adding a BCMAxCD3 bispecific T cell engager to our pipeline complements our rapid global clinical development of CLN-978, enabling us to address the needs of more patients across a broader range of autoimmune diseases than with either molecule alone,” Ahmed said in Wednesday's release.
“Accumulated data supports BCMA as a promising target in autoimmune diseases, offering a precise and potentially disease-modifying approach by eliminating the entirety of the self-reactive plasma cells that result in certain autoimmune diseases, especially those diseases driven by long-lived plasma cells,” the CEO added.
Speaking to Fierce back in February, Ahmed didn’t directly answer whether the biotech was looking for a BCMA candidate to complement CLN-978, but the CEO did say at the time that the company was “thinking about continued opportunities in the autoimmune disease space.”
William Blair analysts agreed that the acquisition of velinotamig complements Cullinan’s CLN-978.
“While we generally believe a CD19xCD3 TCE will have a more approachable side effect profile, we believe there will be autoimmune indications that will require more potent depletion of plasma cells, and therefore see opportunity for velinotamig,” the analysts said in a June 4 note. “The key will be indication selection and dosing frequency, given chronic dosing with BCMAxCD3 TCEs could result in increased risk of infections and loss of vaccine response.”
Cullinan was known as Cullinan Oncology until last year, when the biotech followed a hot trend among cell therapy biotechs of pivoting from cancer to an autoimmune focus. This included switching the direction of CLN-978 from blood cancer to lupus.