Commercial Partners
Successful commercialization of Prevymis® (Letermovir) by MSD (tradename of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, N.J., USA, (NYSE: MRK)): In 2012 AiCuris entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement for its portfolio of investigational medicines targeting Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV), including Letermovir, that resulted in successful registration of the drug on major markets with growing revenues (over $280 million in 2020) and block-buster potential in the upcoming years.
To optimize the royalty flow and to boost the company´s development pipeline, AiCuris signed a deal with Royalty Pharma for a monetization of partial royalty flow for Prevymis®. This deal supports the company´s more expensive development of late-stage assets, while keeping the major part of the royalty and milestones stream with AiCuris.
Scientific Partners
To explore a radically new approach to fight severe bacterial infections, AiCuris signed a deal with Lysando in 2019. This deal grants AiCuris access to a new technology – Artilysins®, a new class of fusion proteins with a novel mode of action to potentially replace conventional antibiotics. These drugs could provide a breakthrough in fighting antimicrobial resistance (AMR), while also solving indications of urgent unmet need in antibacterial therapy. The initial collaboration focused on systemic treatment of blood stream infections (BSI). In October 2021, AiCuris expanded its collaboration for the development and optimization of Artilysin®-based drug candidates for the topical treatment of infected, chronic wounds such as diabetic foot infections, the most common complication of diabetes mellitus.
In February 2022, AiCuris licensed a novel RNA-based therapeutic program from Hybridize Therapeutics. With this deal AiCuris gained exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Hybridize’s BK Virus program, with focus on the treatment of BKV-mediated nephropathy in renal transplant patients. The licensed program expands AiCuris’ pipeline with an approach that has the potential to become a true game changer in transplantation medicine by preventing kidney transplant patients from developing graft rejection and organ loss. Hybridize and AiCuris will collaborate in the further development of the BKV-targeting therapy.