China's Adagene,  a company transforming the discovery and development of antibody-based therapies, has announced a collaboration and exclusive license agreement with Sanofi to generate masked monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for development and commercialization by Sanofi.

Under the terms of the agreement, Adagene will be responsible for early stage research activities to develop masked versions of Sanofi candidate antibodies, using Adagene's SAFEbody technology. Sanofi will be solely responsible for later stage research and all clinical, product development and commercialization activities.

Sanofi will make an upfront payment of $17.5 million to Adagene and will have the ability to advance two initial Sanofi antibody candidates in the collaboration, followed by an option for two additional candidates.

Additionally, Adagene will be eligible to receive total potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments of up to $2.5 billion for advancement of the candidates, which will be exclusively developed and commercialized by Sanofi. Adagene is eligible to also receive tiered royalties on global net sales of approved collaboration products.

SAFEbody technology is designed to address safety and tolerability challenges associated with many antibody therapeutics by using precision masking technology to shield the binding domain of the biologic therapy.