Morphotek Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., has licensed its eribulin-linker payload to Bliss Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (BlissBio) of China.  The licensing agreement grants BlissBio the exclusive right to use the eribulin-linker payload to develop a therapeutic ADC against an undisclosed oncology target for the China market.  The licensing agreement includes an upfront payment, milestones and sales royalty payments, which are undisclosed.  BlissBio has an exclusivity option to expand the territory beyond China to the global market and to develop therapeutic ADCs to two additional undisclosed oncology targets.

Morphotek's ADC Services offer third parties the opportunity to license the proprietary eribulin-linker payload to develop investigational ADCs using either Morphotek's REsidue-SPEcific Conjugation Technology (RESPECT) or an alternative approach to conjugation. 

The eribulin-linker payload consists of a cytotoxic agent, eribulin, modified by a chemical linker to facilitate optimal conjugation.  Eribulin's anti-tumor activity is mediated by the inhibition of microtubule elongation and mitotic spindle formation, resulting in apoptosis.  Eribulin mesylate, marketed as Halaven, is approved in the U.S. for the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer who have previously received at least two chemotherapeutic regimens for metastatic disease, including an anthracycline and a taxane in either the adjuvant or metastatic setting.