Headed by the successful biotech entrepreneur Grace Yeh, Onward Therapeutics pursues a buy and build strategy with the goal to identify and develop innovative medicines for the treatment of cancer. The company which was founded in 2020 and is based at Biopôle has now closed the first contracts with two biotech start-ups.
Onward Therapeutics acquires licenses for potential development candidates and investing in their partners with platform technologies. The company is led by an experienced team.Grace Yeh, President and CEO of Onward Therapeutics was Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of PharmaEngine, Inc., a publicly traded commercial stage oncology company headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan with a wholly owned subsidiary in Paris, France. Its market capitalization on the Taipei Exchange exceeded US$1 billion.
On Tuesday, Onward Therapeutics announced the execution of a worldwide exclusive license and co-development agreement with Biomunex Pharmaceuticals of a bispecific antibody targeting two immune checkpoints. Biomunex grants the rights for Onward to pursue development, manufacture and commercialization of this first-in-class bispecific antibody. Onward and Biomunex will jointly develop the antibody during the preclinical and early clinical program. Biomunex is responsible for early preclinical development, while Onward will complete the IND-enabling studies, and will be responsible for GMP manufacture, clinical development, and commercialization.
Under the terms of the agreement, Onward will pay upfront, development, regulatory and sales milestones, as well as tiered royalties on net sales. In addition, Onward will make an equity investment in Biomunex, and Dr. C. Grace Yeh, Chairman and CEO of Onward will join the board of Biomunex. The details of the financial terms were not disclosed.
On Wednesday Onward announced the execution of a strategic investment in EMERCell, a company that has developed a platform technology to produce off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cells. The undisclosed amounts of the equity investment in three instalments, allow Onward to become the majority shareholder. Dr. Alain Herrera, Chief Medical Officer of Onward, has been elected Chairperson of the Board of EMERCell. In the era of cancer immunotherapy, NK cells are one of the immune cells that can be harnessed, along with antibodies or genetic modifications to kill tumor cells. Onward will assist EMERCell to scale up their patented process of activation and amplification of allogeneic NK cells and to conduct clinical investigations.
(Press release / SK)
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