LG Chem has doubled down on developing an innovative cancer treatment by zeroing in on undruggable targets through a license-in agreement with Frontier Medicines, a United States-based biotechnology company.
According to LG Chem’s announcement Wednesday, it acquired the exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialize Frontier Medicines’ FMC-220 outside Greater China, with the latter retaining ownership and full control in Greater China.
Under the agreement, LG Chem will be responsible for regulatory filings, global clinical development and commercialization in the licensed territories while Frontier retains an option for enhanced financial participation through partial funding of the confirmatory clinical trial.
The US biotech will receive an upfront payment and is eligible to receive additional clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments and mid-single-digit to double-digit royalties on net sales. The financial figures of the deal were not disclosed.
“FMC‑220 is an innovative approach that targets genetic mutations with limited existing treatment options,” said Son Jee-woong, president of LG Chem Life Sciences. “We will work to validate its potential as a treatment option that could deliver benefits to patients.”
FMC-220, a first-in-class covalent p53 Y220C activator being evaluated for the treatment of solid tumor cancers with TP53 loss-of-function mutations, is aimed at targeting p53, a tumor suppressor protein, which has long been considered as undruggable due to its lack of binding pockets for small-molecule drugs.
The p53 Y220C is a common missense mutation found in approximately 1 to 3 percent of cancers, particularly prevalent in solid tumors such as lung, breast, ovarian and colorectal cancers.
Preclinical data showed that FMC-220 delivers unprecedented potency, selective engagement and durable antitumor activity at low doses across a broad range of tumor models including those harboring co-mutations.
“This partnership with LG Chem marks an exciting and pivotal step for Frontier and for the FMC-220 program, underscoring the promise of our proprietary Frontier Platform to address historically challenging targets and deliver differentiated, covalent precision therapies,” said Chris Varma, CEO of Frontier Medicines.
“Through this collaboration with LG Chem, the FMC-220 program will continue to advance, progressing toward translating the encouraging preclinical data we have demonstrated to date for FMC-220 into meaningful impact for patients.”
Aiming to begin Phase 1 clinical trials in both the US and Korea this year, LG Chem plans to initially focus on ovarian cancer, where the p53 Y220C mutation is relatively more prevalent before expanding into other solid tumors.
By Kan Hyeong-woo (hwkan@heraldcorp.com)
