February 09, 2015 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aduro Biotech, Inc. today announced that it has achieved its first milestone under its collaboration with Janssen Biotech, Inc., by initiating toxicology studies to support an Investigational New Drug Application for ADU-741, an immuno-oncology product candidate for the treatment of prostate cancer. The Janssen decision to advance ADU-741 toward clinical trials was based on preclinical data generated in the first eight months of the collaboration. This accomplishment triggered a milestone payment to Aduro.

In May 2014, Aduro entered into an agreement granting Janssen an exclusive, worldwide license to certain product candidates specifically engineered for the treatment of prostate cancer based on its novel LADD immunotherapy platform. Under the agreement, facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, California, Aduro is eligible to receive up to a potential total of $365 million in upfront license fees and milestone payments upon achievement of defined development, regulatory and commercialization milestones, if multiple programs advance to commercialization, as well as tiered royalties on worldwide net sales.

“This is an important validation of our ability to rapidly engineer new product candidates from our LADD platform,” said Stephen T. Isaacs, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Aduro. “We are pleased to earn the associated milestone payment and importantly to see our technology progress toward clinical trials to evaluate its utility in prostate cancer.”

About LADD

LADD is Aduro’s proprietary platform of live, attenuated, double-deleted Listeria monocytogenes strains that have been engineered to initiate a powerful innate immune response and drive a targeted, durable adaptive immune response.

About ADU-741

ADU-741 is a multivalent LADD product candidate engineered specifically for the treatment of prostate cancer. In May 2014, Janssen Biotech, Inc. licensed exclusive global development and commercialization rights to ADU-741.

About Aduro Biotech

Aduro Biotech, Inc. is a private, clinical-stage immuno-oncology company focused on the development of its live, attenuated, double-deleted (LADD) Listeria monocytogenes and cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) technology platforms to initiate powerful innate immune responses and drive targeted, durable adaptive immune responses against cancer. Aduro has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA for its lead immuno-oncology regimen, CRS-207 and GVAX Pancreas, in pancreatic cancer. The company is evaluating CRS-207 and GVAX Pancreas in the ongoing Phase 2b ECLIPSE clinical trial and has additional ongoing clinical trials with its LADD product candidates in mesothelioma and glioblastoma. The company is also developing clinical candidates using synthetic small molecule CDNs that are designed to activate the intracellular STING receptor. For more information, please visit www.aduro.com.

Contacts

Aduro Biotech, Inc.
Greg W. Schafer, 510-809-4801
Chief Operating Officer
or
Media Contact:
Angela Bitting, 925-202-6211
press@aduro.com