OMERS snaps up drug royalties and milestones from Xencor for $215m
OMERS Life Sciences has acquired a portion of royalties and milestones for drugs as part of Xencor’s licensed partnerships for $215m. The financial interest deal is for Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ Ultomiris (ravulizumab-cwvz) and MorphoSys AG’s Monjuvi (tafasitamab-cxix). Xencor has had deals with MorphoSys AG and AstraZeneca’s rare disease business Alexion since 2010 and 2013, respectively. The deals saw Xencor provide both companies with its Xtend Fc domains, which increase the half-life of antibodies, in return for royalties on drug sales and milestone payments. OMERS has acquired royalties on global sales of Ultomiris from 1 July 2023 onwards, with annual caps beginning in 2026. Xencor will still be eligible for new sales-based milestone payments from OMERS, based on a 7 November press release. OMERS has also acquired royalties on global sales of Monjuvi, also known as Minjuvi outside of the US, from 1 July 2023 onwards until it has received 1.3 times the value of the Monjuvi purchase price. As per its US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label, Ultomiris is indicated for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria and atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome to inhibit complement-mediated thrombotic microangiopathy. It is also approved to treat generalised myasthenia gravis in patients who are anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibody-positive. Monjuvi is an antibody indicated for the treatment of relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in combination with lenalidomide. According to GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Centre, Ultomiris and Monjuvi have predicted sales of $3.65bn and $148m. GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology. Canada-based OMERS is a public pension plan, with its Life Sciences division investing on the plan’s behalf. The fund has generated C$127.4bn ($92.49bn) in net assets as of June 2023. Xencor CEO Bassil Dahiyat said: “A strengthened financial position offers us additional flexibility to execute our internal clinical development programs with the greatest potential for success, and importantly, we are retaining potential economic upside from the sales performance of Ultomiris and Monjuvi/Minjuvi.”
OMERS has gained financial upsides for Ultomiris and Monjuvi sales from July 2023, with Xencor retaining a portion of sales-based milestones.
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