Agios, Celgene Establish New Collaboration

Agios Pharmaceuticals and Celgene Corporation has announced an agreement creating a new global strategic collaboration focused on metabolic immuno-oncology, an emerging field of cancer research focused on altering the metabolic state of immune cells to enhance the body's immune response to cancer. The goal of the collaboration is to discover, develop and commercialize novel therapies based on Agios' innovative cellular metabolism research platform. Agios will receive an upfront cash payment of $200 million plus the potential for additional payments if certain development and regulatory milestones are achieved. 

"The immune system's ability to attack tumors is highly regulated by cellular metabolism. This emerging discipline of metabolic immuno-oncology has great potential to provide novel insights and targets for cancer immunotherapy in solid and hematologic malignancies," said Rob Hershberg, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Celgene. "This strategic agreement combines Agios' scientific leadership in cellular metabolism with Celgene's expertise and growing efforts in immuno-oncology and builds upon the extremely productive partnership and working relationship that exist between our two companies."

"Metabolic immuno-oncology is an exciting new area of research for Agios that holds tremendous promise for patients and builds on our strength in cellular metabolism," said David Schenkein, M.D., chief executive officer at Agios. "Following our successful cancer metabolism partnership, we look forward to continuing our work with Celgene in this new field. This strategic alliance will allow Agios to quickly expand our existing research platform into a third core area while leveraging Celgene's capabilities and broad portfolio of immuno-oncology assets."