Boehringer Ingelheim, Tessellate Bio collaborate to develop precision treatments for hard-to-treat cancers
Ingelheim: Boehringer Ingelheim and Tessellate Bio, a precision oncology company, have entered into a research collaboration and global license agreement to develop first-in-class, oral precision treatments for people living with cancer.
Cancer continues to be one of the leading challenges in medicine and treatment options for many cancers remain limited.
"The new collaboration with Tessellate Bio aims to develop treatments targeting tumors dependent on alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) for their growth. This feature is present in 10-15% of all cancers and associated with poor prognosis and a lack of targeted therapies," Boehringer Ingelheim said in a release.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tessellate Bio is entitled to receive near term payments including an upfront license fee, research funding, and technical milestone payments, as well as downstream success-based milestones, with an overall deal value in excess of €500 million.
“We look forward to working with Tessellate Bio’s team of scientists to develop innovative cancer treatments based on their synthetic lethality approach targeting ALT positive tumors," said Lamine Mbow, Global Head of Discovery Research at Boehringer Ingelheim. "This new collaboration complements our oncology research portfolio and further reinforces our commitment to transforming the lives of people living with cancer."
Andree Blaukat, CEO, Tessellate Bio said, “This is our first pharma collaboration, and we believe that Boehringer Ingelheim is the ideal partner to advance this innovative program to benefit patients with ALT positive cancers. The company has a proven commitment to oncology and the agreement aligns with our collaborative strategy for bringing new targeted treatment options based on the concept of synthetic lethality to patients across a wider range of cancers.”
Tessellate Bio has developed inhibitors of an undisclosed target that plays a key role in enabling the uncontrolled growth of ALT positive cancer cells. Blocking this target has been shown to lead to increased DNA damage, replication stress and ultimately tumor cell death, specifically in ALT positive tumor cells. A clear benefit is that healthy cells are not affected because they have no dependency on this mechanism.
