BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM ENTERS GLOBAL LICENSING AGREEMENT TO DEVELOP AND COMMERCIALIZE INNOVATIVE ANTIBODIES FROM A*STAR FOR TARGETED CANCER THERAPIES
2.6.2022 16:10:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Boehringer Ingelheim and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) today announced a global licensing agreement under which Boehringer Ingelheim will obtain exclusive worldwide rights to research, develop and commercialize products based on a panel of innovative, tumor-specific antibodies from A*STAR. Boehringer Ingelheim aims to use these antibodies to direct therapeutic effector mechanisms such as antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and T-cell engagers exclusively to tumor cells, and to that end develop a range of highly targeted cancer treatments.
“Boehringer Ingelheim believes that these promising antibodies in-licensed from A*STAR will help us advance potent therapeutic candidates against key molecular cancer targets,” says Clive R. Wood, Senior Corporate Vice President and Global Head of Discovery Research at Boehringer Ingelheim and continues: “We look forward to developing these assets for a broad range of cancers with the goal to deliver breakthrough opportunities for patients.”
Boehringer Ingelheim is pioneering a range of versatile therapeutic platforms in order to develop innovative medicines that target the tumor directly (tumor cell-directed therapies) or that enable the immune system to target the tumor (immune cell-targeted therapies). One tumor cell-directed modality is antibody drug conjugates, which allows for delivery of toxins directly into tumor cells. Another is T-cell engagers facilitating direct contact between T-cells and tumor cells, leading to T-cell-mediated killing of the tumor. Both technologies are directed towards markers on the surface of cancer cells, also known as antigens, in order to attack tumor cells but spare healthy tissues.
The innovative antibodies from A*STAR can potentially enable the development of safer, more efficacious therapies as they selectively bind to antigens that are highly expressed on tumor cells but are absent on normal healthy tissues.
Under the terms of the agreement, Boehringer Ingelheim will be responsible for further research, preclinical and clinical development as well as commercialization of targeted cancer therapies using the antibodies from A*STAR. A*STAR may receive payments totalling >100 million EUR in upfront and success-based development and commercialization milestones.
The technology used to identify the unique A*STAR antibodies resulted from a multi-institutional collaboration in Singapore. A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and Institute of Bioengineering & Bioimaging (IBB) generated antibodies which exclusively target antigens that were initially identified from gastric cancer cells. Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), Singapore’s national platform for drug discovery and development hosted by A*STAR, then optimized the antibodies and confirmed their applicability to a range of other solid cancers. EDDC also demonstrated the utility of these antibodies in directing different therapeutic modalities selectively to cancer cells.
Professor Damian O'Connell, Chief Executive Officer of EDDC, says, “As Singapore's national drug discovery and development platform, EDDC is proud to translate great science in Singapore into valuable assets that can enable the precise treatment of cancer. We believe that Boehringer Ingelheim, with its broad expertise and technologies, is the right partner to maximize the potential of these antibodies for the development of safer, more targeted therapies for cancer patients.”
Professor Tan Sze Wee, Assistant Chief Executive (Enterprise) of A*STAR, says, “These antibodies were developed in Singapore through close collaboration across multiple institutions. There was also strong support by the Singapore Gastric Cancer Consortium. The agreement is testament to the best-in-class research taking place in Singapore. Cancer is a devastating disease, and we hope the fruits of our research can improve patient outcomes.”
Please click on the link for “Note to Editors’ and ‘References’:
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220602005475/en/
Contact information
For media queries and clarifications:
Dr. Reinhard Malin
Innovation Unit Communications
Corporate Affairs
Boehringer Ingelheim
Tel: +49 6132 77-90815
Email: reinhard.malin@boehringeringelheim.com
Owen Sia
Assistant Head, Corporate Communications
Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Tel: +65 6517 7866
Email: owen_sia@hq.a-star.edu.sg
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
SymphonyAI Introduces Symphony Risk Intelligence, an Agent-native Platform That Unlocks Always-on Compliance™ — the Catalyst for Transforming the Financial Crime Operating Model24.9.2026 16:04:00 EEST | Press release
SymphonyAI today introduced Symphony Risk Intelligence (SRI), an enterprise-grade, agent-native platform built to unlock Always-on Compliance™. This is a critical shift from periodic to continuous risk and compliance management, in which institutions continuously reassess risk and adapt controls as regulations, threats and business activity change, rather than waiting for the next scheduled review. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260924914614/en/ Current approaches have reached their structural limits. The FinCrime Frontier 2026–27 Report, released recently by SymphonyAI and AML Intelligence, finds just 4.7% of financial institutions continuously update their compliance monitoring and controls as risk changes, and 76.3% still review alerts manually or with only partial automation — barely changed year over year. Yet standing still isn't an option: the regulatory climate is at a major inflection point across ev
Just 4.7% of Financial Institutions Continuously Update Their Compliance Monitoring and Controls as Risk Changes, New Research Finds24.9.2026 16:04:00 EEST | Press release
SymphonyAI, a global leader in vertical AI product platforms, and AML Intelligence, the leading source of news and insight for the financial crime compliance community, today released the FinCrime Frontier 2026–27 Report, finding that most financial institutions still rely on periodic review cycles to manage financial crime risk, even as the threats and regulations they are meant to track continue to evolve dynamically. Based on the perspectives of more than 200 financial crime and compliance leaders, including senior leaders from major global financial institutions, the research finds that just 4.7% of financial institutions continuously update their compliance monitoring and controls as risk changes, while 56.8% have not adopted always-on compliance monitoring at all, are only exploring it, or remain at an early, pilot-stage level. The finding points to a structural gap: financial crime typologies, payment ecosystems and regulatory expectations are evolving continuously, while most c
Boomi Appoints Mike Hickman as Chief Financial Officer24.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Boomi, the data activation company for AI, today announced the appointment of Mike Hickman as Chief Financial Officer. Hickman will lead Boomi's global finance and accounting organization, spanning financial planning and analysis, accounting, treasury, tax, and financial reporting. He reports to Boomi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Steve Lucas. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260924761566/en/ Boomi Appoints Mike Hickman as Chief Financial Officer Hickman brings three decades of senior finance leadership in high-growth SaaS and technology companies, with experience across the full corporate lifecycle: scaling through IPO, executing a take-private, and integrating large acquisitions. He joins from Proofpoint, where he spent seven and a half years, most recently as Senior Vice President of Finance, helping guide the company through its $12.3 billion take-private and the $1.8 billion acquisition of Hornetsec
Altasciences Supports 4B Healthcare in Advancing Steroid Nasal Irrigation Rinse to Clinical Trials24.9.2026 15:40:00 EEST | Press release
Altasciences is proud to announce that recent formulation work supporting 4B Healthcare Inc. (“4B”) has helped advance its RhineX nasal irrigation rinse therapy into clinical investigation. Following several months of formulation development, R&D manufacturing, stability testing, and quality assurance support at Altasciences’ CDMO facility in Harleysville, PA, the Tennessee-based pharmaceutical company has received FDA clearance to proceed with clinical testing of RhineX under its IND. First subject dosing is planned for October 2026, approximately seven months after formulation development began. "The concept for RhineX grew out of a problem I have seen in my own ENT practice for years—the need for a better treatment option for allergic rhinitis when conventional medical therapy is not enough,” said Brannon Mangus, MD, Co-Founder and CEO of 4B. “We founded 4B Healthcare to take that physician insight and turn it into a pharmaceutical product that could meaningfully change how these pa
ParaScript Acquired by Stakk to Create a Global Digital Trust Platform Focused on Combating Fraud24.9.2026 15:30:00 EEST | Press release
ParaScript, an Al-powered document processing company, today announced that Stakk Limited (ASX: SKK) (“Stakk”), a company publicly traded on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), has successfully completed its US$63 million (A$88.7 million) acquisition of ParaScript, LLC and ParaScript Management, Inc. (“ParaScript”), creating a scaled and profitable AI-native digital trust platform. Stakk acquired ParaScript for its industry-leading AI-powered document processing and recognition technology, which uses advanced machine learning to process large volumes of documents with high speed and accuracy, helping organizations detect fraud earlier, prevent losses and improve outcomes. The combined business becomes one of the largest AI-native digital trust infrastructures serving regulated industries, with more than 300 enterprise customers and more than 110 billion digital interactions processed annually across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Australia. Customers include many of the world's
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom