UroGen's exit makes Agenus look smart

Now that UroGen has an approved drug on its hands, with Zusduri selling $1.8m in its first full quarter since launch, the company can probably do without many other distractions. This might explain the termination, revealed on Thursday, of a deal with Agenus covering the latter’s anti-CTLA-4 MAb zalifrelimab. A go/no-go decision on advancing into phase 2 was to have been made after presentation of durability data from a phase 1 study of the intravesical project, combined with UroGen’s TLR7 agonist UGN-201, in high-grade non-muscle invasive bladder at the Society for Urologic Oncology meeting in December. That said, even if zalifrelimab is now a zero Agenus looks smart, having already monetised the molecule through a May 2024 transaction in which an 18.75% royalty over several projects, including this one, were mortgaged to Ligand Pharmaceuticals in return for $75m. UroGen had paid Agenus $10m up front in November 2019 for rights to zalifrelimab, and its exit mirrors those of Incyte, Merck & Co and Bristol Myers Squibb over four other Agenus assets – all of which had similarly been mortgaged to Ligand.

Selected Agenus assets mortgaged to Ligand Pharmaceuticals for $75m

Source: OncologyPipeline.