The Division of Research Administration and Industry Ventures is composed of multiple departments that work closely together to enable research collaborations between MD Anderson and industry. From internal approval processes for contract execution and grant submission, to intellectual property management and strategic business development, the division helps facilitate strategic partnership opportunities on behalf of the institution.
How We Partner with Industry
Strategic Alliances
Strategic alliances aim to provide space for innovative collaborations to accelerate breakthrough discoveries in cancer research. Our goal at the Office of Strategic Industry Ventures is to develop deeper and more robust relationships with companies that share a similar vision and goal.
Technology Commercialization
Technology transfer aims to transition institutional intellectual property to third parties for further development and commercialization. We cultivate relationships with reputable entities and entrepreneurs with a proven record of advancing technologies to the market.
Creative Solutions
The Office of Strategic Industry Ventures and Office of Technology Commercialization teams collaborate routinely to align interests and goals with stakeholders to deliver innovative pathways and contractual frameworks to partner with industry.
Highlights
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Summit Therapeutics, Inc. today announced a strategic five-year collaboration agreement for the purpose of accelerating the development of ivonescimab.
Leveraging MD Anderson’s clinical infrastructure and research expertise together with Summit’s innovative, investigational, potential first-in-class PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody, the collaboration is designed to quickly discover additional opportunities for ivonescimab, including several tumors outside of its current development plan. MD Anderson will lead multiple clinical trials in several tumor types to evaluate the safety and potential clinical benefit of ivonescimab, including the possibility of identifying biomarkers through additional research activities.
“We are excited to collaborate with MD Anderson to provide unique insights and expertise to further broaden the development of ivonescimab,” said Allen S. Yang, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer of Summit. “This collaboration will help accelerate the growing clinical development efforts for ivonescimab and help bring this innovative advancement on immunotherapy and anti-angiogenic standards to as many patients who may benefit as possible.”
Early work may include certain types of renal cell carcinoma, colorectal cancer, skin cancer, breast cancer and glioblastoma, which has the potential to rapidly expand the breadth and depth of the ivonescimab development program. The bispecific antibody has shown significant promise in recent read-outs from the randomized Phase III non-small cell lung cancer clinical trials, HARMONi-A and HARMONi-2, conducted by Summit’s partner, Akeso, in addition to promising Phase II data in other solid tumors.
“Through our extensive clinical research efforts, we are committed to bringing impactful new medicines to patients in need as rapidly as possible,” said Christopher Flowers, M.D., division head of Cancer Medicine at MD Anderson. “We are pleased to be collaborating with Summit to broaden the clinical development efforts of ivonescimab and its unique mechanism of action to support our mutual goal to improve the therapeutic options for patients with cancer.”
MD Anderson and Summit will collaborate on the design and conduct of preclinical and clinical studies, with oversight from a joint steering committee. This research is expected to begin later this year.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Sibylla Biotech today announced a strategic collaboration agreement to discover and develop novel small-molecule cancer therapies known as folding interfering degraders (FIDs), which disrupt the proper folding of target proteins and lead to their degradation.
Under the agreement, Sibylla and MD Anderson will jointly conduct discovery and development work from target identification through drug candidate nomination on selected proteins, with the potential to continue further pre-clinical and clinical development. The collaboration brings together Sibylla’s Pharmacological Protein Inactivation by Folding Intermediates Targeting (PPI-FIT) technology with the drug development expertise and capabilities of MD Anderson’s Therapeutics Discovery division.
“The Sibylla team is committed to expanding the applications of our PPI-FIT technology and FIDs to provide new treatment options for hard-to-treat indications. This collaboration builds upon the progress we have achieved to date and the applicability of our technology and know-how,” said Lidia Pieri, PhD, co-founder and chief executive officer of Sibylla Biotech. “We value the opportunity to work with MD Anderson’s team of drug development experts in order to foster our vision of treating patients with high unmet medical need.”
Sibylla’s proprietary PPI-FIT technology is used to discover and develop FIDs, small molecules that induce the degradation of target proteins by interfering with the folding pathway. Notably, PPI-FIT can be applied to target proteins currently considered “undruggable” due to the absence of suitable pockets in their native state.
“Folding interfering degraders represent an exciting new modality to target key cancer drivers, and we look forward to opportunities to advance compelling candidates forward as novel therapeutic options,” said Tim Heffernan, Ph.D., vice president and head of Therapeutics Discovery at MD Anderson. “By aligning Sibylla’s innovative PPI-FIT technology with our drug development engine, we hope to create impactful new medicines that will expand options for patients in need of more effective therapies.”
By uniting scientists, clinicians and drug development experts together within MD Anderson, the institution’s Therapeutics Discovery division is designed to eliminate the bottlenecks slowing traditional drug discovery. Seamless integration with MD Anderson physicians allows Therapeutics Discovery to develop impactful cancer therapies inspired directly by patient needs and clinical insights.
Once a drug candidate is nominated, Sibylla and MD Anderson may consider further drug development, translational, and clinical activities to advance the candidate for patients in need.
Disclosure
MD Anderson has an institutional conflict of interest with Sibylla and will implement an Institutional Conflict of Interest Management and Monitoring Plan to manage this relationship.
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