On December 18, 2020, Janux Therapeutics announced a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Merck, known as "MSD" outside the United States and Canada, to discover, develop, and commercialize innovative, next-generation T cell engager immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The goal of the collaboration is to use Janux's proprietary Tumor Activated T Cell Engager (TRACTrTM) technology to engineer novel, T cell engager drug candidates directed against two cancer targets selected by Merck. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck has received an exclusive worldwide license to products and intellectual property developed from this collaboration. In exchange, Janux will be eligible to earn up to $500.5 million per target in upfront and milestone payments plus royalties on sales of any product derived from the collaboration. Merck will fund research and development performed under the collaboration. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advised Janux on patent matters related to the transaction.
T cell engagers are an emerging class of immunotherapies that bind to a tumor cell and recruit a patient's T cells to eradicate tumor cells, but previous technologies have been constrained by dose-limiting toxicities, poor pharmacokinetic profiles, and attenuated efficacy. Janux's proprietary TRACTr technology is designed to overcome these limitations by integrating tumor-specific activation with crossover pharmacokinetics to produce best-in-class T cell engager therapeutics. In preclinical studies, Janux TRACTr drug candidates have demonstrated comparable anti-tumor efficacy relative to standard T cell engagers but lack the associated liabilities related to cytokine release, healthy tissue toxicities, or systemic immune activation.
Wilson Sonsini has represented Janux Therapeutics on patent matters since its formation. The Wilson Sonsini team that advised Janux in this transaction includes Michael Hostetler and Laurie McNamara.
For more information, please see Janux's press release.