Collaboration Brings Together TScan’s Proprietary Target Discovery Platform and Amgen’s Inflammation Therapeutic Expertise and Research Capabilities

TScan to Receive $30 Million Upfront With Potential Development and Commercial Milestone Payments of Over $500 Million 

THOUSAND OAKS, CA and WALTHAM, MA, USA I May 9, 2023 I Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) and TScan Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:TCRX), today announced a multi-year collaboration that will use TScan’s proprietary target discovery platform, TargetScan, to identify the antigens recognized by T cells in patients with Crohn’s disease. Under the terms of the agreement, TScan will receive a $30 million upfront payment and is eligible to earn over $500 million in success-based preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones as well as tiered single-digit royalty payments. 

Amgen will evaluate a variety of modalities to create therapeutics based on targets discovered by TScan and will retain all global development and commercial rights. Amgen also has an option to expand the collaboration to ulcerative colitis, under certain terms. Each party will be responsible for its own research expenses.

“Anti-inflammatory drugs have traditionally been the standard of care for patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease, but often lack efficacy and durability,” said Raymond Deshaies, Ph.D., senior vice president of Global Research at Amgen. “TScan’s platform provides a best-in-class approach to identify non-conventional drug targets to enable the development of potential first-in-class therapeutics to address unmet medical needs.”

“We’re excited to apply our target discovery platform to the autoimmunity space,” said Gavin MacBeath, Ph.D., acting chief executive officer and chief scientific and operating officer at TScan. “Our TargetScan platform, which we have now extended to identify MHC class II targets of CD4+ T cells, is well-suited for the discovery of antigens targeted by the immune system in inflammatory bowel disease. We look forward to developing the value of our platform both in this partnership with Amgen and in other autoimmune diseases.”

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term for two conditions – Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – that are characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract.

About Amgen 
Amgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology. 

Amgen focuses on areas of high unmet medical need and leverages its expertise to strive for solutions that improve health outcomes and dramatically improve people’s lives. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen has grown to be one of the world’s leading independent biotechnology companies, has reached millions of patients around the world and is developing a pipeline of medicines with breakaway potential. 

Amgen is one of the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is also part of the Nasdaq-100 index. In 2022, Amgen was named one of the “World’s Best Employers” by Forbes and one of “America’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies” by Barron’s.

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About TScan Therapeutics, Inc.
TScan is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cell therapies (TCR-T) for the treatment of patients with cancer. The Company’s lead TCR-T therapy candidates, TSC-100 and TSC-101, are in development for the treatment of patients with hematologic malignancies to eliminate residual disease and prevent relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. The Company is also developing multiplexed TCR-T therapy candidates for the treatment of various solid tumors. The Company has developed and continues to build its ImmunoBank, the Company’s repository of therapeutic TCRs that recognize diverse targets and are associated with multiple HLA types, to provide customized multiplexed TCR-T therapies for patients with a variety of solid tumors.

SOURCE: Amgen