'Lekraza' Original Developer Licenses Technology for AZ's 'Tagrisso' Resistance-Overcoming Drug

Pine Tree Therapeutics announced on the 24th that it has signed an exclusive license and global license agreement with AstraZeneca (AZ) for a preclinical epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) degradation candidate substance.

Pine Tree is a biotech company founded in 2019 in Cambridge, Boston, USA by CEO Song Hojun, formerly of Novartis and Genosco. Through next-generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) technology, it is developing anticancer drugs capable of overcoming resistance to existing anticancer agents and various drugs. CEO Song also has a history of directly leading the development of Yuhan Corporation’s EGFR mutant lung cancer treatment, Reklaza, while at Genosco. Coincidentally, this time the pipeline is being exported to AZ, which developed Tagrisso, a competitor of Reklaza.

EGFR mutation is one of the major mutations in lung cancer. Cancer cells mutate diversely to evade the patient’s immune system attacks, and anticancer drug developers continuously develop drugs targeting these mutations, resulting in an endless war of spear and shield. Among these, EGFR mutation is known to occur in about 40% of Asian lung cancer patients.

Under this license agreement, AZ will have exclusive rights to globally develop and commercialize Pine Tree’s preclinical EGFR degrader. Pine Tree will receive upfront and initial milestone payments of up to $45 million (approximately 62.3 billion KRW). If the total transaction amount exceeds $500 million (approximately 692.3 billion KRW), additional payments for development and commercialization milestones and tiered royalties on global sales upon commercialization are also expected.

CEO Song Hojun said, "Through this agreement, we can advance one of Pine Tree’s innovative receptor degradation programs to the clinical stage. Pine Tree’s pan-EGFR degrader was developed through our proprietary multi-antibody platform, AbReptor, and showed preclinical antitumor activity when administered alone in tumors resistant to drugs and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). It also demonstrated enhanced antitumor activity when co-administered with EGFR inhibitors."

Fuza Safra, Senior Vice President of AZ Oncology Research and Development, said, "TPD is a promising field,” and “we are pleased to have exclusive rights to license Pine Tree’s pan-EGFR degrader to develop treatments for patients with EGFR mutant and expressing cancers through this agreement."