By Brady Huggett

ImmunoGen Inc. signed a collaboration with Raven Biotechnologies Inc. to identify targets and therapeutic antibodies for ovarian cancer, choosing a company expected to shave time off development.

"It's the quality of their science," said Gregg Beloff, chief financial officer at ImmunoGen, commenting on what attracted ImmunoGen to Raven. "They take a little bit of a different approach than the typical genomics company. We get both cell surface targets as well as antibodies to the targets from this deal. That way we can hopefully shorten the drug development time."

The collaboration guidelines state that ImmunoGen gets development, manufacturing and commercialization rights in North America and Europe to therapeutic products stemming from the targets and antibodies provided by Raven through its technology. Raven gets an up-front licensing fee, research support, milestones and royalties. Neither company would comment on the value of the deal, but Donald Perryman, vice president and chief business officer at Raven, assured BioWorld Today that the deal was solid.

"It's a short period of work on our part and it's a nice package of milestones and royalties," he said. "It rewards us for any and all successes our candidates have. This isn't a kiss-your-sister deal, it's a real discovery deal."

The collaboration seems to fit into both companies' business plans.

Beloff said the deal with Raven represents one of the two kinds of agreements ImmunoGen likes to sign. Its recent Tumor-Activated Prodrug (TAP) technology deal with Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., gives the company funding without losing anything, he said, calling it an "autopilot deal." It's the money generated from those types of deals - in the case of the Millennium deal, potentially more than $40 million in milestones per target to ImmunoGen - that facilitates deals like the one with Raven. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 7, 2001.)

"We take the cash from our other agreements and fund our internal pipeline," Beloff said. "We use Raven to generate both targets and antibodies, and we fund it through licensing deals like the one with Millennium."

The collaboration initially will examine ovarian cancer but will apply Raven's technology to target additional cancers, Beloff said, saying ImmunoGen hopes to "develop several therapeutics out of this collaboration."

The collaboration will end when ImmunoGen selects its preset, but undisclosed, number of targets, Perryman said. And, like with most deals, there is the chance for further work if both companies are pleased.

"It's like any good marriage," Perryman told BioWorld Today. "If you get on well, it can last. If not, it won't last as long."

For Raven, a private company founded in 1999 and located in San Carlos, Calif., the deal takes it closer to its goal of getting a candidate into the clinic. It has defined three ways to do this: take a candidate there alone, through a partnership, or through discovery deals like this one.

"We have all three potential [routes to the clinic] covered," Perryman said. "We are hoping to do one more discovery deal and then in a month or two start partnering. We have two antibodies that we think are going into preclinical work this year, so we should be in the clinic a year and a half or so beyond that."

And, in separate ways, the deal gives both companies validation.

"We have the only platform that I know that can discover antibodies and cell surface targets at the same time," Perryman said, adding that when showing the technology to others early on, the response was, "Nice idea, but does it work?"

"We have a couple of verifications like this and I think the mystery is over," he said.

For ImmunoGen, the validation isn't for the technology as much as it is for the company's direction, Beloff said.

"What it does is validate our business model and what we have been communicating to our investors and potential investors - developing our own internal products is the greatest return for our investors," he said.

ImmunoGen Inc.'s stock (NASDAQ:IMGN) dropped 43.75 cents Thursday to close at $12.75. n