Cantargia and BioWa Extend Ongoing Collaboration Around the POTELLIGENT® Technology

LUND, Sweden, and PRINCETON, NJ, Aug. 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cantargia AB and BioWa Inc. have signed an extension of the license agreement around the BioWa proprietary POTELLIGENT® Technology for production of Cantargia's antibody drug candidate CAN04, which gives Cantargia broader rights to use the technology. Since the original agreement allowing use of POTELLIGENT® Technology was signed in 2015, Cantargia has advanced CAN04 to phase IIa clinical development for potential use in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pancreatic cancer (PDAC).

Cantargia develops antibody-based pharmaceuticals against the interleukin 1 receptor accessory protein (IL1RAP). The POTELLIGENT® technology generates antibodies with enhanced antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). The investigational antibody CAN04 binds IL1RAP with high affinity and functions through both ADCC and blockade of interleukin 1 signaling. CAN04 is currently produced in a Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line provided by BioWa which has been engineered using POTELLIGENT® Technology. The extended agreement enables Cantargia to create and use additional CHO cell lines engineered using POTELLIGENT® Technology and develop and commercialize CAN04 made through such CHO cell line.

With CAN04 having reached phase IIa clinical development, the next step in the production development is to further reduce production costs using various process improvements as well as scaling up, and Cantargia and BioWa have agreed to extend the current license to include additional opportunities.

"We are extremely pleased with our collaboration with BioWa and the amended agreement is a logical step in our long-term relationship. Given the successful advances of CAN04, optimization of the production process to reduce cost is part of the CAN04 development plan", Göran Forsberg, Cantargia's CEO says.

"We believe that this extension of the license agreement would add benefits into the fruitful collaboration between Cantargia and BioWa." said Takeshi Masuda, BioWa's President and CEO. "We are very pleased that this amended agreement could support the innovative program going forward". 

For further information, please contact
Cantargia:
Göran Forsberg
CEO
Telephone: +46(0)46-275-62-60
E-mail: goran.forsberg@cantargia.com 

BioWa:  
Shintaro Hasegawa
Director, Business Development
Telephone: +1-609-580-7340
E-mail: hasegawa.shintaro@biowa.com

This is information that Cantargia AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 08.30 CET on August 23, 2019.

About Cantargia 

Cantargia AB (publ), reg. no. 556791-6019, is a biotechnology company that develops antibody-based treatments for life-threatening diseases. The basis for this is the protein IL1RAP that is involved in a number of diseases and where Cantargia has established a platform. The main project, the antibody CAN04 (nidanilimab) is being studied in the clinical phase I/IIa CANFOUR with a primary focus on non-small cell lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. The study is conducting both monotherapy and combination therapy. Cantargia's other project, CANxx, is in the research phase and is aiming to develop an IL1RAP binding antibody optimised for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. 

Cantargia is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (ticker: CANTA). More information about Cantargia is available at http://www.cantargia.com.  

About BioWa

BioWa is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. ("Kyowa Kirin"), a leading biopharmaceutical company in Japan. BioWa is the exclusive worldwide licensor of the POTELLIGENT® Technology for creating antibody molecules with enhanced ADCC, and COMPLEGENT® Technology for that with enhanced Complement-Dependent Cytotoxicity ("CDC"). BioWa has been offering POTELLIGENT® / COMPLEGENT® Technologies to partners under a license to maximize the value of these technologies. Together with Kyowa Kirin, BioWa is committed to promote ADCC/CDC enhanced monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics to fight against life-threatening and debilitating diseases.

About POTELLIGENT® Technology

POTELLIGENT® Technology improves potency and efficacy of antibody therapeutics by enhancing ADCC, one of the major mechanisms of action for antibody therapeutics. POTELLIGENT® Technology involves the reduction of the amount of fucose in the carbohydrate structure of an antibody using a proprietary fucosyl transferase-knockout CHO cell line as a production cell. Research shows that POTELLIGENT® Technology dramatically enhances ADCC activity of an antibody in vitro, and significantly increases potency and efficacy of the antibody in vivo. A number of POTELLIGENT® antibodies are being investigated in human clinical trials and a growing body of evidence has confirmed the clinical benefit of this technology.

As of today, POTELLIGENT® Technology has been used to develop and commercialize products for markets in Japan, US and Europe, including treatments for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, adult T-cell leukemia lyphoma, peripheral T-cell lymphoma, and severe eosinophilic asthma.

POTELLIGENT® and COMPLEGENT® are registered trademarks of Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. 

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