Astra springs a subcutaneous surprise

With South Korea's Alteogen being challenged by Halozyme over its hyaluronidase technology, adding AstraZeneca to its partners will give sentiment a boost. Monday's deal covering ALT-B4, the same Alteogen subcutaneous tech that Halozyme claims infringes its recently granted patents, also comes as a surprise for Astra; the UK group earlier discontinued a SC version of Imfinzi, after indicating that novel immuno-oncology approaches using IV delivery would play a more important role for it than SC reformulations. Unfortunately nothing has been revealed about either the value of the deal or its targets, of which there are more than one; it would be curious if these included PD-L1, for instance. Interestingly, a SC form of Astra's big ADC blockbuster, Enhertu, is already in development using Alteogen's tech, though that deal is routed via the drug's originator, Daiichi Sankyo. Alteogen's most important partner remains Merck & Co, which uses ALT-B4 as the basis for a SC version of Keytruda. Merck/Alteogen and Halozyme clashed this month over rights to modified hyaluronidase; though the Astra deal endorses the IP covering ALT-B4, Halozyme has made it clear that it's only taking issue with the Keytruda formulation – for now.

Alteogen's subcutaneous technology partners*

Note: *oncology only. Source: OncologyPipeline.