Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH

Boehringer Ingelheim has inked a research collaboration with Tessellate Bio to develop precision medicines for cancers that maintain telomere length to survive and grow. The Amsterdam-based biotech could get more than €500 million ($573 million) in upfront license fees, research funding and milestones, according to a Wednesday release. The partners will focus on advancing oral drugs for ALT (alternative lengthening of telomeres) positive cancers. Telomeres act as protective seals at the end of chromosomes. They get shorter with each round of cell division and eventually reach critically short lengths, causing cells to stop dividing or die, Tessellate CEO Andree Blaukat told Endpoints News in an interview. But ALT positive cancers can keep telomere length, which means the cells continue surviving and dividing. Tessellate said it has discovery-stage candidates that block an unnamed target associated with the “uncontrolled growth” of ALT positive tumor cells. The biotech will now work exclusively with Boehringer on these programs. The candidates trigger DNA damage and cancer cell death while sparing healthy tissue, according to the biotech. The tie-up marks Tessellate’s first partnership with a biopharma company. The biotech previously teamed up with research institutes CMRI and Omico in September 2024 to take a closer look at the prevalence of ALT across tumor types and the genetic influences involved. Around 10% to 15% of all cancers rely on the ALT maintenance mechanism and there’s a “particularly high prevalence” for mesenchymal tumors and brain cancers, Blaukat said. More common cancers — such as breast, colorectal and lung — are ALT positive in the range of 5% or less, he added. Tessellate is developing a companion diagnostic device to help identify patients with more common cancers who may benefit from a treatment that addresses the ALT mechanism. Elsewhere, the biotech’s lead in-house program targets cancers with loss of function in the retinoblastoma 1 gene, which is responsible for tumor suppression. Tessellate said this feature affects between 80% and 100% of small cell lung cancer cases and more than 40% of triple-negative breast cancer cases. The company emerged from stealth in October 2023 with €8 million in seed funding from BioGeneration Ventures and Forbion. It has labs in Stevenage, UK, alongside its Dutch base. Meanwhile, Boehringer has been bulking up its oncology pipeline in recent years. In July 2024, the German drugmaker bought Nerio Therapeutics in a deal featuring $1.3 billion in biobucks. Nerio is developing small molecule drugs that inhibit PTPN1 and PTPN2. All in all, Boehringer has acquired more than six cancer biotechs since 2019.

The partnership signifies the broadening of the pipeline portfolio of Boehringer in autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. Credit: Michael Vi/Shutterstock. Boehringer Ingelheim and Cue Biopharma have entered a strategic research partnership and licence agreement to develop and commercialise the latter’s CUE-501 product candidate for autoimmune conditions. CUE-501 is a differentiated B cell depletion therapy. The agreement outlines a multi-year partnership that will utilise Cue Biopharma’s technology to advance research and develop the candidate molecule. The partnership also allows the companies to broaden research and development (R&D) in several B cells that target bispecifics for a range of autoimmune conditions. It signifies the broadening of the pipeline portfolio of Boehringer in autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. Cue Biopharma will receive a $12m upfront payment from Boehringer Ingelheim, along with payments of research support. The deal could yield Cue Biopharma up to $345m in total, including payments based on research, development and commercial milestones, beginning with two preclinical development targets. Cue is also eligible for royalty payments on net sales of the therapy. The company develops therapeutic biologics that selectively modulate and engage disease-specific T cells for treating inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. Its preclinical candidate molecule is designed to attach to a B cell-specific membrane protein while concurrently engaging virus-specific memory killer T cells. This action could lead to a selective B cell depletion and reduction in the autoimmune and inflammatory process, surpassing current approaches in providing safety. Cue Biopharma CEO Daniel Passeri stated: “We are very pleased to embark on this collaboration and licence agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim. “This partnership with Boehringer enables further development of the candidate molecule and has the potential to further validate our Immuno-STAT platform, for what we believe to represent a breakthrough, novel approach to selectively redirect and harness potent anti-viral memory T cells against targeted, pathologic cells.” This announcement follows the recent opening of Boehringer Ingelheim’s subsidiary NBE Therapeutics’ new antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) R&D facility in Switzerland.

iStock, Mininyx Doodle At the heart of the licensing deal is CUE-501, a bispecific molecule that can selectively deplete B cells to address autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. Boehringer Ingelheim is fronting $12 million to license Cue Biopharma’s investigational B cell depletion therapy for autoimmune diseases, the German biopharma announced on Monday. The star of this back-heavy, multi-year deal is Cue’s CUE-501, a preclinical bispecific molecule that works by binding to a specific protein found on the surface of B cells. At the same time, CUE-501 also engages and activates a specific subset of killer T cells, selectively depleting B cells to suppress autoimmunity and inflammation. According to the biotech’s website , CUE-501 sidesteps the systemic activation of all T cells, which “may offer significant advantages over current cell therapy-based strategies.” For the right to develop and commercialize CUE-501, Boehringer Ingelheim is pledging up to $345 million in research, development and commercial milestones, on top of the $12 million upfront payment. Cue will also be entitled to royalties on net sales of CUE-501. In exchange for this investment, Cue will leverage its platform technologies to further develop CUE-501. Both parties may also expand the partnership to include other anti-B cell bispecifics for autoimmune indications, according to Monday’s release. Carine Boustany, Boehringer Ingelheim’s global head of Immunology and Respiratory Disease Research, said in a statement that Monday’s licensing deal is a “strategic expansion” of the company’s portfolio in the autoimmune and inflammatory space, allowing it to “deliver a more effective treatment option to patients earlier in their disease journey.” Boehringer’s immunology and inflammatory portfolio is anchored by the oral kinase inhibitor Ofev, indicated for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In 2024, sales of Ofev jumped 7% to rake in approximately $4.26 billion. Meanwhile, the pharma’s asthma drug Spiriva remained one of its top sellers, with more than $1.8 billion in sales last year, despite dipping roughly 17% from the previous year. Additionally, in September 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim reported that its drug candidate nerandomilast aced the Phase III FIBRONEER-IPF study, showing significant lung function benefits in patients with IPF. At the time, the pharma revealed plans to approval application for the drug in this indication, though a specific timeline was not provided. Beyond I&I, Boehringer Ingelheim has also signed several deals in the past year. In January, the pharma entered two antibody-focused partnerships —one with Lonza’s Synaffix and another with Oxford BioTherapeutics—in oncology. In July 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim dropped $1.3 billion to acquire Nerio Therapeutics and its small molecule assets that can “reshape” the immune system to target tumors.