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GSK is eligible to pay up to 268 million pounds sterling ($357 million) in a combination of upfront, development and commercial milestone payments.\n Fresh from a European cancer conference that was all about antibody-drug conjugates, GSK has turned to French biotech Syndivia for a preclinical prostate cancer prospect.Syndivia’s ADC has already proven its effectiveness at shrinking tumors in preclinical studies “without causing a proportional increase in significant side effects, even at higher doses,” GSK explained in an Oct. 27 release. The British pharma is betting the candidate can be targeted directly at tumors, for which there is “currently a gap in available therapies” in the community practice setting for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).GSK is eligible to pay up to 268 million pounds sterling ($357 million) in a combination of upfront, development and commercial milestone payments, although the companies didn’t break down the financial details.“Prostate cancer represents a significant health burden and an emerging area of growth for GSK, where targeted therapies are urgently needed in metastatic castration-resistant settings,”  Hesham Abdullah, M.D., global head of oncology R&D at GSK, said in this morning’s release.“The addition of this ADC builds on GSK\'s growing portfolio and strengths in tumour-targeted technologies, including GSK’227, our B7-H3-targeting ADC,” he added. Abdullah sat down with Fierce Biotech at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Berlin earlier this month to discuss the latest data from the Hansoh Pharma-partnered GSK’227. But, rather than those Chinese data, Abdullah told Fierce at the time to “stay tuned” for GSK’s own ADC readouts coming down the track, including a phase 3 study of GSK’227 in small cell lung cancer. The pharma also has five phase 3 studies for its B7-H4-targeted ADC GSK’584 lined up to launch in the first half of 2026.The ADC at the center of this morning’s deal was developed with Syndivia’s GeminiMab conjugation technology. The Strasbourg, France-based biotech has also been working with Inatherys on a CD71-targeting ADC designed to treat acute leukemia.Syndivia CEO Sasha Koniev said the company is “proud that GSK will advance” its mCRPC program “on a global scale.”“This agreement underscores the value of our GeminiMab ADC platform and the opportunity to bring a promising new therapy to patients with pressing unmet medical needs,” Koniev added.The deal keeps the spotlight on ADCs, which stole the show at this month\'s ESMO conference. From Roche’s $1.4 billion licensing deal to AstraZeneca’s presidential symposium and an avalanche of clinical readouts, the modality was everywhere at the Berlin meeting.

Roche is spending $80 million upfront for global rights to Hansoh Pharma’s colorectal cancer candidate, which is an early-stage ADC that targets the CDH17 protein. Hansoh could get up to $1.45 billion in milestones, as well as tiered royalties on future sales, according to a Friday release . The Chinese biotech’s asset, called HS-20110, is in Phase 1 development in the US and China for colorectal cancer and other solid tumors. The deal does not include the rights to the program in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Roche already has a presence in the colorectal cancer market through its anti-VEGF drug Avastin, which is approved for metastatic disease. Also, earlier this year, a Phase 3 study supported by the National Cancer Institute showed that Roche’s PD-L1 inhibitor Tecentriq plus chemotherapy significantly improved disease-free survival in certain patients with stage 3 colon cancer. Tecentriq is not currently approved for colorectal cancer. The Swiss drugmaker is not the first large pharma to bet on Hansoh’s ADC technology. In December 2023, GSK licensed a solid tumor asset known as HS-20093 from Hansoh in a deal that included $185 million upfront. That was the UK drugmaker’s second cancer pact with Hansoh, following one earlier that same year for $85 million upfront.