ImmunoGen, Inc.

A Genmab lawsuit pits AbbVie against a close collaborator. \n AbbVie has filed a lawsuit against Genmab, accusing the Danish drugmaker of being “intentionally and willfully blind” to the theft of trade secrets. Genmab has vowed to “vigorously defend” itself against the claims.The case, which AbbVie filed late last week, centers on antibody-drug conjugate technology used by ProfoundBio. Genmab acquired the biotech for $1.8 billion last year, securing rights to a challenger to AbbVie’s Elahere. AbbVie alleges that ProfoundBio initially failed to produce a viable ADC pipeline and, “instead of doing the hard work necessary for success,” took a shortcut by tapping a former AbbVie employee, Julia Gavrilyuk, Ph.D., for knowledge.“Armed with AbbVie’s trade secrets and confidential information, ProfoundBio turned its luck around, filing patent applications and advancing a clinical pipeline that prominently feature what it characterized as its single ‘solution’ to the challenge of ADC development: designing ADCs with ‘hydrophilic linkers with proven payloads,’” AbbVie claimed in the lawsuit.Gavrilyuk and Tae Han, Ph.D., had worked together at Stemcentrx and, after that biotech was acquired, AbbVie. In 2018, Han cofounded ProfoundBio. The lawsuit claims Han was aware Gavrilyuk’s work at AbbVie “involved precisely the type of ADC linkers” ProfoundBio needed. According to the lawsuit, Gavrilyuk worked closely with Stefan Munneke, Ph.D., who had the idea of using open-chain sugars in ADC linkers, at AbbVie. The suit claims Han and ProfoundBio “knowingly and intentionally encouraged and enticed” Gavrilyuk to disclose “AbbVie’s stolen trade secret Sugar Scaffold ADC linkers and related designs.” ProfoundBio began filing patents and promoting its linker technology in 2021, according to the lawsuit, and the platform was central to its acquisition by Genmab.AbbVie’s lawsuit names Han, Gavrilyuk, ProfoundBio and Genmab as defendants. The alleged theft of trade secrets took place before Genmab acquired ProfoundBio. However, AbbVie is arguing Genmab should have known the biotech was built on its trade secrets. The lawsuit quotes Genmab executives discussing their high level of due diligence for the ProfoundBio buyout and notes that one executive said the innovative aspect of the ProfoundBio linker technology “is the very heavy use of sorbitol in order to increase the hydrophilicity.” Such quotes informed AbbVie’s allegation that “Genmab knew, reasonably had reason to know or was willfully blind” to the trade secrets.Genmab sees things differently, saying it “categorically refutes allegations and will vigorously defend the company.” The Danish drugmaker called the case “yet another lawsuit among multiple recent lawsuits filed by AbbVie against competitors alleging misappropriation of its trade secrets by former AbbVie employees.” Adcentrx, Alvotech, BeiGene and Revance have been in AbbVie’s crosshairs in similar cases. The Genmab lawsuit pits AbbVie against a close collaborator. AbbVie and Genmab co-commercialize the blood cancer drug Epkinly in the U.S. and Japan. However, Genmab established itself as a potential direct competitor to AbbVie in other areas when it bought ProfoundBio.Rinatabart sesutecan, an ADC designed to deliver a topoisomerase-1 inhibitor to cells that express folate receptor alpha, was the centerpiece of the ProfoundBio deal. AbbVie acquired an ADC against the same target when it paid $10.1 billion for ImmunoGen in 2022. 

The alliance combines the strengths of OBT’s platform with Roche’s expertise in drug development. Credit: PowerUp/Shutterstock. Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT) has entered a multi-year partnership with Roche to discover antibody-based therapeutics for cancer treatment. The partnership will leverage OBT’s OGAP-Verify discovery platform, which claims to offer greater sensitivity and enables target selection with enhanced drug development attributes. OBT will identify targets using its platform, which will then be validated via joint research efforts. Roche will lead subsequent research, development and commercialisation activities for these targets. It will pay OBT up to $36m upfront. OBT could also earn more than $1bn in milestone payments, in addition to royalties on net product sales. The alliance combines the strengths of OBT’s discovery platform with Roche’s expertise in drug development, aiming to progress several oncology targets. Roche corporate business development head Boris Zaïtra stated: “We are excited to enter this strategic collaboration with OBT. By combining Roche’s expertise in discovering and developing transformative therapeutics with OBT’s innovative target discovery platform, we aim to unlock new possibilities in cancer treatment. “This partnership underscores our commitment to advancing potentially first-in-class antibody-based therapeutics. Together, we aim to accelerate the development of innovative therapies that address major unmet patient needs in oncology.” OBT, as a clinical-stage oncology company, focuses on developing antibody-based therapies to address unmet needs in cancer treatment. Its portfolio includes bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates. OBT076, the company’s lead clinical programme, commenced expansion in a US clinical trial in2021, which included subjects with advanced or refractory solid tumours, such as lung, bladder, ovarian and gastric cancers. Its pipeline and development offerings have been previously validated via collaborations with Abbvie’s ImmunoGen, Zymeworks and Boehringer Ingelheim, among others.

Once targets have been selected by Oxford BioTherapeutics, the two companies will validate them together before Roche takes over for R&D and potential commercialization.\n Roche has secured its third antibody-drug conjugate pact of the year, this time agreeing to hand $36 million in upfront payments to Oxford BioTherapeutics.The agreement will also see U.K.-based Oxford in line for milestone payments that could exceed $1 billion, along with a slice of the royalties from potential sales. The “multiple” oncology targets for the collaboration will be identified by Oxford’s OGAP-Verify discovery platform, which is designed to “enable greater sensitivity and thereby the selection of targets with improved attributes for drug development,” according to the biotech’s March 19 release.Once the targets have been selected by Oxford, the two companies will validate them together before Roche takes over for R&D and, the pair hopes, commercialization.“By combining Roche’s expertise in discovering and developing transformative therapeutics with OBT’s innovative target discovery platform, we aim to unlock new possibilities in cancer treatment,” Boris Zaïtra, head of corporate business development at Roche, said in the release. “This partnership underscores our commitment to advancing potentially first-in-class antibody-based therapeutics.” Roche, which put billions on the line a year ago across several ADC pacts, kicked off 2025 by returning to Innovent Biologics for a DLL3-targeted ADC. Days later, Roche\'s Chugai Pharmaceutical tapped Zurich-based Araris Biotech to develop new ADCs in a deal worth up to $780 million.The Swiss oncology major is far from the first pharma to take an interest in Oxford, the partners of which have included the likes of Boehringer Ingelheim, Amgen, ImmunoGen, Zymeworks and WuXi.“This collaboration builds on our efforts to enhance, validate and advance the discovery of oncology targets, and we look forward to leveraging Roche’s deep expertise to translate these insights into potential new treatments for patients,” Oxford’s CEO Christian Rohlff, Ph.D., said in the release. “Our discovery philosophy is very patient-centric and Roche’s strength to integrate pharma and diagnostics is unique in the industry.”