BI, Enleofen in $1 Bn-Plus Deal for Interleukin-11 Platform

Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) has acquired worldwide exclusive rights to the preclinical interleukin-11 (IL-11) platform of Enleofen Bio, a Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company, for developing therapies across a broad range of fibro-inflammatory diseases. Under the deal, Enleofen may receive in excess of $1 billion per product in upfront and success-based development and commercialization milestones.

Enleofen is a spin-out company from the National Heart Centre Singapore at SingHealth and Duke-NUS Medical School under the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC), Singapore. Enleofen exclusively licensed a suite of patents and number of antibody products when it was founded in 2017 from the AMC. Subsequent to this, Enleofen built an anti-IL-11 antibody platform and advanced its drug-development programs towards the clinic. BI says it will now develop this platform further and plans to work jointly with scientists at the AMC to accelerate the platform into clinical development. The initial focus will be on therapies for patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and interstitial lung disease (IDL), two of BI’s core disease focus areas, with a potential to expand into further fibro-inflammatory conditions based on IL-11’s central role in disease. IL-11 is a cytokine, a protein that certain cells of the body use to communicate and plays a key role in fibro-inflammatory conditions, according to information from Enleofen. Blocking IL-11 action has been shown to inhibit disease across many organs (liver, lung, kidney, retina, bowel, heart and skin).

BI will be solely responsible for the clinical, regulatory and commercial development of the licensed therapies. Under the terms of the agreement, Enleofen may receive earn-out payments in excess of $1 billion per product in upfront and success-based development and commercialization milestones.

Source: Boehringer-Ingelheim, Enleofen Bio

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