South Korea’s Hanmi Pharmaceutical announced on Wednesday it has inked a license and collaboration agreement with U.S.-based RAPT Therapeutics for the latter’s clinical-stage FLX475 in Korea and China. FLX475 is a CCR4 antagonist in development for the treatment of multiple cancers.

Under the terms of the agreement, RAPT Therapeutics will receive $4 million in an upfront payment and is eligible to receive up to $54 million in success-based development milestones in the future.

Founded in San Francisco in 2015, RAPT Therapeutics is a Nasdaq-traded biopharmaceutical company focused on developing multiple oral therapies for patients with significant unmet needs in oncology and inflammatory diseases.

Fierce Biotech, a daily newsletter about the industry, named RAPT Therapeutics as one of its Fierce15 companies last year.

FLX475, the company’s lead immune anticancer drug candidate, is a CCR4 antagonist designed to block the migration of regulatory T cells specifically into tumors, but not healthy tissues, according to Hanmi Pharmaceutical.

RAPT is currently conducting a phase 1/2 study of the drug as a monotherapy, and in combination with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in patients with solid tumors and expect initial results from the trial in the first half of 2020.

“FLX475 targets “charged” tumors including gastric cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, triple negative breast cancer and head and neck cancer, which are predicted to have high levels of CCR4 ligands,” said Bang Yung-jue, a Seoul National University Hospital oncologist, who will be involved the FLX475 clinical development program. “I believe FLX475 has the potential to offer patients a new therapeutic option that is desperately needed, particularly in Korea, which has the highest rate of gastric cancer in the world.”

“This collaboration with Hanmi Pharmaceutical can provide us an entry point into the Asian market, allowing us to potentially expand our geographic footprint in a region with high prevalence of patients with “charged” tumors who we believe are most likely to respond to FLX475,” said Brian Wong, CEO of RAPT Therapeutics. “Hanmi Pharmaceutical has accumulated clinical development experiences and an extensive network of key opinion leaders and we believe Hanmi is a perfect partner for the development of FLX475.”

“We are committed to building and expanding our immuno-oncology portfolio, and see FLX475 as a potential keystone in our effort to deliver new safe and effective cancer therapeutics to patients who need them,” said Hanmi Pharmaceutical CEO Kwon Se-chang, adding “This compound complements our current product portfolio.”

By Seo Jin-woo and Minu Kim

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