(News Bulletin 247) – The nano-medicine specialist has announced that it has signed a global licensing agreement with the Dutch group, owned by Johnson & Johnson. In this context, the company will receive initial financial support of $60 million. The agreement also provides for total milestone payments that could exceed 2 billion euros.

The horizon is clearing up for Nanobiotix. The nano-medicine specialist was facing a very tight cash flow situation which forced him to quickly find a marketing agreement with a partner.

The market had regained confidence in early May when the biotech indicated that it was in negotiations with “a world leader in the pharmaceutical industry” for NBTXR3, its flagship product, in the field of oncology. This product is administered by intratumor injection and activated by radiotherapy. It will then destroy the tumor cells, then triggering an adaptive immune response and a long-term anti-cancer memory.

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Several billion dollars in potential payments

The veil is now lifted on Monday. Nanobiotix announced that the “world leader” in pharmaceuticals was none other than the Dutch group Janssen, owned by the American Johnson and Johnson. The two companies have signed an agreement which gives Janssen an exclusive license to develop and commercialize NBTXR3. This license covers all countries except those contained in a previous Nanobiotix license agreement with the Chinese company LianBio, namely China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. .

“Nanobiotix will receive short-term financial and operational support worth up to $60 million. This includes an upfront payment of $30 million, as well as operational support for regulatory and study development activities. NANORAY-312 (a Phase 3 study evaluating NBTXR for the treatment of locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck) worth up to $30 million, which Janssen may provide at its sole discretion,” explained Nanobiotix .

In addition, Janssen will be fully responsible for an initial phase 2 study evaluating NBTXR3 in patients with stage 3 lung cancer “and will have the ability to take control of studies currently being conducted by Nanobiotix”, continues the company. .

Beyond these upfront payments, Nanobiotix will be eligible for milestone payments of up to $1.8 billion, which are tied to the achievement of regulatory development and commercialization goals. In addition, other milestone payments of up to $650 million may be paid upon successful development and regulatory milestones for a set of five additional indications (i.e. outside of stage 3 lung cancer and advanced carcinoma of the head and neck) which may be developed by Janssen, at its sole discretion.

“Finally, and in agreement with Janssen, Nanobiotix may also be eligible for additional milestone payments of up to $220 million in total for any new indication Nanobiotix develops on its own,” the company continues. And aside from milestone payments, Nanobiotix will also benefit from “double-digit” royalties on net sales of NBTXR3.

Capital support as well

Finally, Nanobiotix will be able to receive capital funding from Johnson & Johnson Innovation in two tranches ($5 million and $25 million) via capital increases which will be carried out under certain conditions.

“From the effective date of the license agreement, cash and cash equivalents will allow the company to finance its activity until the first quarter of 2024, without taking into account development milestone payments, nor using Johnson & Johnson’s “second tranche of investment of $25 million,” Nanobiotix said.

On the Paris Stock Exchange, the action logically rises, taking 54% to 7.19 euros around 10:50 a.m.

Nanobiotix had to actively find a partnership. The company has, as a liability, a loan from the European Investment Bank which included the requirement, however, to have a minimum position of cash and cash equivalents up to the principal amount of the loan (which provided for a maximum of 40 million euros).

The EIB had however loosened this corset a little, by lowering the minimum cash threshold to 15 million euros until the end of July. This gesture could be extended until the end of January, provided that the company signs a commercial development partnership before the end of July. What happened on Monday.