Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan; President and CEO: Gyo Sagara; “Ono”) today announced that it has entered a drug discovery agreement to discover and develop antibody drugs in the immuno-oncology field with Memo Therapeutics AG (Schlieren/Zurich, Switzerland; CEO: Karsten Fischer; “MTx”), an innovator in the field of antibody discovery and development.

 Under the terms of the agreement, MTx will leverage its best-in-class microfluidic single-cell molecular cloning and screening technologies to discover antibodies for immuno-oncology targets. Ono will obtain intellectual property rights and worldwide exclusive rights to develop and commercialize therapeutic drug candidates with antibodies resulting from the collaboration. Ono will pay to MTx an upfront payment, research funding during the collaboration period, and milestones on progress of clinical development and sales, as well as royalties on future sales.

 “We look forward to collaborating with Memo Therapeutics AG’s team of antibody scientists through this collaboration and hope that the candidates generated through our collaboration will add to our current portfolio of medicines to help cancer patients in immuno-oncology,” said Toichi Takino, Senior Executive Officer / Executive Director, Discovery & Research of Ono Pharmaceutical.

 “Ono with their proven track-record in the immune-oncology space is an ideal partner to advance this program. We are delighted to take this important step as the partnership recognizes our platform’s ability to identify high-value targets and create functionally superior antibodies in the immuno-oncology field,” said Dr. Christoph Esslinger, Chief Scientific Officer and founder of Memo Therapeutics AG.