Israeli firm Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) and China-based Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co Ltd (SSE: 600196) (HKEX: 02196) announced on Monday that the companies, through their respective subsidiaries, have entered into a strategic partnership for the development of investigational TEV-56278, an anti-PD1-IL2 ATTENUKINE therapy.

Teva says that its internally developed ATTENUKINE technology provides a new mechanism of action, potentially offering high efficacy and low toxicity in a broad array of oncology indications.

Under the terms of the agreement, which aims to accelerate clinical data generation, Fosun Pharma has been granted an exclusive licence to develop, manufacture and commercialise TEV-56278 in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Macau SAR and Taiwan region and selected Southeast Asian countries. Teva retains all development, manufacturing and commercialisation rights to the licensed molecule in the rest of the world. The partnership provides Teva with the opportunity to leverage Fosun Pharma-generated data in other geographies.

TEV-56278 is designed to deliver IL-2 selectively to PD-1+ T cells, thus amplifying anti-tumour T-cell activity while minimising off-target systemic toxicities. The targeted approach holds promise for improving outcomes for patients with a variety of oncology diseases.

TEV-56278 is an anti-PD-1 antibody-cytokine fusion protein designed to selectively deliver an interleukin-2 (IL-2), i.e., ATTENUKINE, to PD-1-expressing T cells within the tumour microenvironment.