Alligator Bioscience (Alligator) (STO:ATORX), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing tumour-directed immuno-oncology antibody drugs, announced on Wednesday the receipt of payments of over USD3.5m under its collaboration agreement with the South Korean company AbClon Inc, a company dedicated to the research, development of new antibody drugs.

Reportedly, this follows the exercise of an option by a third party, Shanghai Henlius Biotech Inc (Henlius), to expand from a regional to a global agreement.

In October 2016, Henlius had signed a license agreement with AbClon, encompassing the intellectual property and commercial rights of the monoclonal HER2 antibody AC101 in China (including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao). The two parties have now signed an amendment to the agreement under which Henlius will exercise its option to secure the right to develop and commercialise AC101 globally.

This option exercise triggers a payment of USD10m from Henlius to AbClon. As Alligator holds an ownership interest in this project, this entitles Alligator to 35% of AbClon's income from the agreement with Henlius.

This payment of USD3.5m (before foreign tax) to Alligator will be made in two parts, the first half due in 2018 and the second half in H1 2019.

Through Alligator's subsidiary Atlas Therapeutics AB, the company holds an ownership interest in the Biosynergy project, run by the South Korean company AbClon. Alligator incurs no overheads for this project, but is entitled to a share of any future revenues.

Till date, two milestone payments totalling SEK2.1m have been received to date in conjunction with a regional out-licensing of one of these products, the HER2 antibody AC101.

(EUR1.00=SEK10.26)