Biopharma Business

Visterra and Vir Biotechnology have entered into a research collaboration, exclusive licence and option agreement for the development and commercialisation of select programmes for infectious diseases.

The programmes will be developed from Visterra’s Heirotope platform technology, which uses proprietary computational tools and technologies to identify specific epitopes. These epitopes are vital to the function of certain antigens. Once the programmes are developed, the companies will take advantage of Vir Biotechnology’s expertise in R&D for infectious diseases to advance them and move to commercialisation.

“Vir has a very strong and specialised focus on innovation in infectious diseases, which is an ideal application for our Hierotope platform. We are very pleased that Vir has chosen to partner with Visterra and this collaboration will accelerate the advancement of our promising research programmes focused on treating and preventing infectious diseases,” said Dr Brian J.G. Pereira, president and chief executive officer of Visterra. “In addition, this collaboration further validates the utility and robustness of our Hierotope platform and our ability to design and engineer precision antibody-based biological medicines against targets that are difficult to address by traditional techniques. We look forward to seeing these promising programmes yield important drugs that will benefit underserved patients around the globe.”

“The acquisition of best-in-class assets is key to achieving Vir’s mission to transform the care of people with serious infectious diseases,” added George A. Scangos, PhD, chief executive officer of Vir. “Visterra’s novel technologies have demonstrated great potential in preclinical research and early clinical development, and we are pleased to work together to advance them through the clinic and ultimately to patients.”

Vir will exclusively license up to five research programmes for infectious diseases from Visterra. As a part of the agreement, Visterra will receive an upfront payment, and will receive funding of costs it incurs related to the licensed programmes. Additionally, Visterra will be responsible for the development of the Vir licensed programmes up to a pre-determined stage, and then Vir will assume further development of these candidates. At the point when Vir assumes development responsibilities, Visterra will be eligible to receive future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments per Vir licensed programme. Visterra will also be eligible to receive tiered royalties related to worldwide net sales of products developed under the collaboration. In total, Visterra will be eligible to receive more than $1 billion in development, regulatory and sales milestones, plus royalties on commercial sales.