Both companies will share responsibility for discovery and certain preclinical activities.  In addition, Boehringer Ingelheim will have sole responsibility for all subsequent preclinical, clinical, regulatory, commercial and manufacturing activities for any DART-based product resulting from the collaboration.

During the first three years of the collaboration, MacroGenics expects to receive payments of about $60 million, which includes an upfront cash payment, annual maintenance fees, R&D funding, and near-term research-based milestones. Boehringer Ingelheim also expects to make a future equity investment in MacroGenics.  In addition, MacroGenics may be eligible to receive development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments that can reach up to $210 million for each of the ten DART programs in case of full commercial success of multiple DART products.  MacroGenics may also receive tiered royalties on net product sales. MacroGenics has the option to co-promote certain DART products in the United States. Further financial details were not disclosed.

DART BackgroundThe DART platform is a bispecific antibody technology that enables the generation of highly stable antibody-based therapeutic molecules that can simultaneously target two different antigens. DART therapeutics can accommodate virtually any variable region sequence in a "plug-and-play" fashion and have very favorable manufacturing properties. DART proteins are available in both bacterial and mammalian expression systems. DARTs have also been engineered with an Fc domain, which confers them with additional properties, such as Fc receptor binding and extended half-life.