Agenus Awarded Grant to Enable QS-21 Innovations

- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invests ~$1M to develop novel technology for QS-21

- Grant to develop an alternative, novel plant cell-culture based method for QS-21 production

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Agenus Inc. (NASDAQ: AGEN), an immuno-oncology (I-O) company with a pipeline of immune modulating antibodies, cancer vaccines, adjuvants and adoptive cell therapies¹, announced today that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded it a grant of ~$1M to develop an alternative, plant cell culture-based manufacturing process to ensure the continuous future supply of Agenus' proprietary QS-21 Stimulon adjuvant, a key component of multiple vaccines targeting infectious and endemic diseases.

Agenus' QS-21 Stimulon is a proprietary adjuvant, currently incorporated as part of Glaxo Smith Kline's (GSK's) highly efficacious Shingrix vaccine. Additionally, Agenus' QS-21 Stimulon is used in GSK's Mosquirix vaccine and numerous other clinical-stage vaccines, including Agenus' own cancer vaccines. Given the criticality of QS-21 in making vaccines efficacious, Agenus plans to develop a cell-culture based, environment friendly manufacturing technique as an alternative future supply. QS-21 is currently extracted from Chilean soap bark trees, exclusively sourced from a localized area in Chile.

"We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in our efforts to revolutionize the way we produce QS-21," said Dr. Garo Armen, Chairman and CEO of Agenus. "The Gates Foundation has recognized the value of consistent supply of high-quality QS-21 to power vaccines. We appreciate their commitment to bringing innovation to drive access to important therapies."

The alternative manufacturing process for QS-21 will be developed in an exclusive partnership with Phyton Biotech², a company with extensive experience developing and applying green chemistry solutions for the production of high-value phytochemicals. Leveraging its Plant Cell Fermentation (PCF) technology, Phyton Biotech will attempt to demonstrate that PCF is a feasible model for the consistent, large-scale and low-cost commercial production of high-quality QS-21 directly from plant cell cultures.