Allergan strengthens DARPin development and discovery alliance with Molecular Partners Dienstag, 21. Juli 2015 - 07:00

Allergan strengthens DARPin development and discovery alliance with Molecular Partners

Allergan expands the broad DARPin alliance in ophthalmology
Alliance covers abicipar, multi-DARPin VEGF/PDGF and other research programs
Allergan will pay USD 35 million in accelerated milestone payments

Zurich‐Schlieren, July 21, 2015. Molecular Partners AG (ticker: MOLN) today announced that Allergan, Inc. has reinforced its broad commitment to the discovery, research and development of multiple DARPin‐based products in ophthalmology in collaboration with Molecular Partners. The collaboration includes a multi‐VEGF/PDGF DARPin currently in preclinical development and several additional discovery programs. Abicipar, a long-acting VEGF antagonist, for which Phase III development was recently initiated, was the first DARPin in the partnership.

In connection with its strengthened commitment to the DARPin research and discovery alliance, Allergan has agreed to make accelerated milestone payments of USD 35 million.

Furthermore, Molecular Partners is entitled to receive additional payments and certain success‐based milestone payments from Allergan in connection with abicipar, the multi‐VEGF/PDGF DARPin and additional discovery programs. This includes up to more than USD 1.7 billion in aggregate development, regulatory and/or sales milestones, as well as tiered royalty payments (up to the double digit percentage range) on any future product sales. Molecular Partners also retains an option to co‐fund development costs in exchange for a royalty step‐up on the multi‐VEGF/PDGF DARPin.

“We are very pleased to support investing into discovery and early development stage molecules where we see a clear angle of differentiation over current treatments,” said David Nicholson, EVP Brand R&D, and added: “The DARPin candidates in our pipeline are of high priority to us as they have the potential to bring significant benefit to patients.”

“We are very pleased to see Allergan’s continued commitment to our collaboration and look forward to jointly developing an exciting pipeline to treat severe diseases of the eye. The dedication of the team at Allergan to ophthalmology will also allow us to focus our internal efforts to advance our proprietary pipeline in oncology with a special focus in immuno-oncology,” says Christian Zahnd, CEO of Molecular Partners.

About Molecular Partners in ophthalmology

Molecular Partners has a strong focus on creating differentiated therapeutics for retinal diseases, including wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), two diseases leading to loss of vision. Together with Allergan, Molecular Partners is advancing abicipar is a long-acting mono-DARPinä that inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) and is currently in pivotal trials in wet AMD and phase II studies in DME. Abicipar has the potential to require less frequent injections into the eye than the current anti-VEGF standards of care, while providing equal or better improvements in vision, both seen as mayor patient benefits in these indications. Further, several programs, including multi-VEGF/PDGF DARPinä, a product that inhibits both VEGF and PDGF, are being advanced through preclinical and clinical development to commercial launch.

About Molecular Partners in oncology

Molecular Partners is advancing a growing proprietary pipeline of DARPin therapies in oncology. The most advanced systemic DARPin is MP0250 is in Phase 1 clinical studies in solid tumors. MP0250 inhibits both VEGF and HGF from binding to their receptors, thereby blocking tumor growth and tumor spreading. The second most advanced oncology DARPin is MP0274 and has broad anti-HER activity inhibiting both downstream HER2 and HER3-mediated signaling and leading to induction of apoptosis. MP0274 is currently in preclinical development. The current focus of Molecular Partners in research is immuno-oncology.

About Molecular Partners AG

Molecular Partners is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing a new powerful class of therapies known as DARPins. DARPins are potent, specific and versatile small protein therapies, which have the potential to offer benefits over conventional monoclonal antibodies or other currently available protein therapeutics. The DARPin technology has the potential to offer a multi-specific approach to treatment, which enables DARPins to target multiple pathways, or multiple epitopes on a single target to achieve substantial patient benefit. DARPins have the potential to advance modern medicine and significantly improve the treatment of serious diseases, including cancer and sight-threatening disorders.

Molecular Partners has four compounds in various stages of clinical and preclinical development and several more in the research stage, with a current focus on ophthalmology and oncology. The company has ongoing research and development partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies, including Allergan, Roche and Janssen and is backed by established biotech investors. For more information regarding Molecular Partners, go to: www.molecularpartners.com.

For further details please contact:

Dr. Christian Zahnd, CEO	Rolf Schläpfer
christian.zahnd@molecularpartners.com	rolf.schlaepfer@konsulenten.ch
	Tel: +41 (0) 43 344 42 42
Dr. Patrick Amstutz, COO	Cat Barnett
patrick.amstutz@molecularpartners.com	cat@justhealthcomms.com
Tel: +41 (0) 44 755 77 00	Tel: +44 (0) 7581 071707

Legal Notice

This announcement is not an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any securities of Molecular Partners AG (the “Company”), nor shall it or any part of it form the basis of, or be relied on in connection with any contract or investment decision. This announcement is not for publication or distribution (directly or indirectly) in or to the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

This announcement contains statements that are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. In some case, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology or subjective assessments, including the words “potential”, “expects”, “targets”, “designed”, “intends” or “plans” or comparable terminology or by discussions of plans, objectives, targets, goals, future events or intentions. These forward-looking statements include matters that are not historical facts or which may not otherwise be provable by reference to past events, and are based on assumptions. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and/or depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements and forecasts. Past performance of the Company cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance.

The information, opinions and forward-looking statements contained in this announcement speak only as at its date, and are subject to change without notice. Neither the Company nor any other person undertakes any obligation to review, update, confirm, or to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that arise in relation to the content of this announcement.