Recently, Shanghai Escugen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. ("Escugen") and Anhui Anke Biotechnology (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Ankebio", stock code: 300009) signed a licensing cooperation agreement. According to this agreement, Escugen will grant Ankebio the rights to use its ADC technology platform, EZWi-Fit®, for the development of ADC products targeting specific antigens. During the licensing period, Ankebio will be responsible for the preclinical research, clinical development, and commercial production and sales of the products in the Greater China region, and will pay Escugen royalties (including upfront payments and milestone payments) as well as a percentage of net sales.
This cooperation marks another external licensing of Escugen's next-generation ADC technology platform, EZWi-Fit®, and signifies the increasing recognition of Escugen's ADC platform technology by more peers in the industry. It is also an important milestone in the deepened cooperation between Escugen and Ankebio.
Dr. Song Lihua, Chairman of Ankebio, said: "We are very pleased to cooperate with Escugen. Escugen focuses on the early development of ADC drugs, while Ankebio has been deeply involved in the clinical advancement, industrialization, and commercialization of biopharmaceuticals for many years and has accumulated rich experience. We hope that through this cooperation, both parties can complement each other's strengths, continue comprehensive and in-depth cooperation, achieve mutual benefits and win-win results, and further consolidate and strengthen the advantages of both parties in their respective fields."
Dr. Zhou Qing, Founder and CEO of Escugen, said: "Ankebio is one of the leading companies in the biopharmaceutical industry, with comprehensive development in product research, production, and sales. We are very pleased to see that the EZWi-Fit® platform technology is applied to ADC new drug development projects, allowing the platform technology to expand to more targets and clinical indications, benefiting more patients. Escugen thanks Ankebio for its high recognition of the EZWi-Fit® technology platform and its trust in Escugen. Escugen will provide full technical support, cooperate for mutual benefit, and look forward to the project entering clinical trials as soon as possible to benefit patients."
About Ankebio
Anhui Anke Biotechnology (Group) Co., Ltd. is a high-tech enterprise mainly engaged in the research, development, production, and sales of biopharmaceuticals and is one of the first companies listed on the ChiNext Board in China (stock code: 300009). It has been recognized as a national innovative (pilot) enterprise, a national demonstration enterprise for technological innovation, and one of the top 100 private manufacturing enterprises in Anhui Province. The company has established several technical platforms, including a national recognized enterprise technology center, a national-local joint engineering research center for precise tumor treatment technology and products, an Anhui Province biological engineering laboratory, an Anhui Province key laboratory for gene engineering pharmaceuticals, and an Anhui Province innovation center for precise tumor treatment products. It is a leading enterprise in the biopharmaceutical field in Anhui Province.
About Escugen Biotechnology
Established in 2017 in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Pudong New District, Shanghai, Escugen is a clinical-stage ADC new drug development company with comprehensive new drug research and development capabilities. The company was founded by veteran returnees with decades of R&D experience in both international and domestic biopharmaceutical companies. The founding team has accumulated rich and successful R&D experience in leading biopharmaceutical companies both domestically and internationally, with capabilities covering antibody discovery, bioconjugation, process development and quality research, preclinical and clinical studies. Escugen's lead clinical pipeline, ESG-401, is a Trop2-targeted ADC that uses an innovative stable and degradable linker to significantly reduce off-target toxicity. Clinical data suggest that ESG-401 has a higher tolerable dose than other ADCs targeting the same antigen, with lower incidence and severity of off-target and on-target toxicities, demonstrating a clear safety advantage. The increased ADC dose and in-body exposure have led to encouraging efficacy in patients with advanced, heavily pretreated breast cancer, with significant antitumor effects on both visceral and intracranial metastases.
About the EZWi-Fit® ADC Technology Platform
EZWi-Fit® is Escugen's proprietary next-generation ADC technology platform, which has successfully filed for patent priority and obtained a registered trademark.
The EZWi-Fit® technology platform employs a stable degradable linker and a topoisomerase I (TopI) inhibitor payload. ADCs generated by this platform targeting multiple antigens have shown significantly higher in vivo activity compared to other ADCs with TopI inhibitors as payloads; they still demonstrate robust antitumor activity in various resistance models with MMAE, Dxd, and other payload molecules; they stably exhibit tumor suppression and elimination in multiple PDX models with low target expression and high heterogeneity; and they possess favorable pharmacokinetic characteristics and safety. Escugen has systematically completed mechanistic studies of the platform technology, elucidating the mechanisms at the molecular, cellular, and in vivo levels regarding anti-multiple drug resistance, bystander effect, and in vivo activity in low-expression target tumor models, providing convincing objective evidence for the platform's competitive advantages over international benchmark technologies. Escugen has conducted in vitro and in vivo studies on ADCs targeting multiple antigens using this platform technology, obtaining evidence of superiority, and has also achieved excellent safety data in non-human primate safety evaluations for several ADCs.
