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License and Collaboration Agreements
3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2025
License And Collaboration Agreements [Abstract]  
License and Collaboration Agreements

Note 7 — License and Collaboration Agreements

We have entered into various collaboration agreements including license agreements and collaborative research, development and commercialization agreements with various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Under these collaboration arrangements, we are entitled to receive license fees, upfront payments, milestone and other contingent payments, royalties, sales milestone payments, reimbursements for research and development activities and (before the sale of the Facility) payments for the manufacture and supply of our PEG reagents. We generally include our costs of performing these services in research and development expense, except for costs for product sales to our collaboration partners which we include in cost of goods sold. We analyze our agreements to determine whether we should account for the agreements within the scope of ASC 808 Collaborative Arrangements, and, if so, we analyze whether we should account for any elements under ASC 606 Revenue from Contracts with Customers.

Biolojic Design, Ltd. (Biolojic): NKTR-0165

In 2021, we entered into a research collaboration and license option agreement with Biolojic to discover and develop agonistic antibodies that activate a novel and previously un-drugged target for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. In 2023, we exercised an option to gain an exclusive license to specified agonistic antibodies and other materials that were developed pursuant this arrangement in all fields of use (other than in the field of oncology). As a result of exercising the option to gain an exclusive license, we may be required to pay up to $18.0 million based on the achievement of certain development milestones, including the first milestone of $3.0 million payable upon the acceptance of the first investigational new drug application, and up to $35.0 million based on the achievement of certain regulatory approval milestones. Each milestone is payable only once, regardless of the number of indications for which we develop the licensed product. We record a liability when a milestone payment becomes probable. As of March 31, 2025, no milestones have been achieved or are considered probable, and no liability has been recorded.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS): Bempegaldesleukin, also referred to as NKTR-214

Effective April 3, 2018, we entered into a Strategic Collaboration Agreement (the BMS Collaboration Agreement) and a Share Purchase Agreement with BMS. Pursuant to the BMS Collaboration Agreement, we and BMS jointly developed bempegaldesleukin in combination with BMS’ Opdivo®. The parties shared the internal and external development costs for bempegaldesleukin in combination regimens based on each party’s relative ownership interest in the compounds included in the regimens.

Upon the effective date of the BMS Collaboration Agreement in April 2018, BMS paid us a non-refundable upfront cash payment of $1.0 billion and purchased 8,284,600 shares of our common stock pursuant to the Share Purchase Agreement for total

additional cash consideration of $850.0 million. In 2020, we received additional non-refundable milestone payments of $50.0 million.

In April 2022, we announced that BMS and we decided to discontinue all development of bempegaldesleukin in combination with Opdivo®. On September 6, 2023, BMS and we terminated the BMS Collaboration Agreement, and pursuant to the surviving provisions of the BMS Collaboration Agreement, the cost sharing provisions continued to remain in effect as BMS and we have wound down the bempegaldesleukin program. On February 12, 2024, we repurchased the 8.3 million shares previously sold to BMS for total cash consideration of $3.0 million.

We determined that the BMS Collaboration Agreement falls within the scope of ASC 808. Based on the cost sharing provisions described above, we recognize the net reimbursement to (from) BMS as an increase (decrease) to the applicable expense. For the three months ended March 31, 2025 and 2024, such amounts are immaterial and are included in research and development expense.

Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly): Rezpegaldesleukin (previously referred to as NKTR-358)

On July 23, 2017, we entered into a worldwide license agreement (the Lilly Agreement) with Lilly to co-develop rezpegaldesleukin, a novel immunological drug candidate that we invented, pursuant to which we received an initial payment of $150.0 million and were eligible for up to $250.0 million in additional development and regulatory milestones. On April 23, 2023, we received from Lilly a notice of at-will termination of the Lilly Agreement. We have regained full rights to rezpegaldesleukin from Lilly, and the Lilly Agreement subsequently terminated. Following the return of our rights to develop rezpegaldesleukin, we bear all costs of development.

 

Other

We have other collaboration agreements that have resulted in commercialized products for our collaborations partners. Under these agreements, we are entitled to receive royalties based on net sales of these products as well as sales milestones. As discussed in Note 3, we have sold our rights to receive royalties from these other collaboration agreements. Our non-cash royalty revenue, which totaled $10.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 and $15.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024, represents revenue for granting licenses which we had satisfied in prior periods.

We have a collaboration agreement with UCB for dapirolizumab pegol, under which we are entitled to up to a total of $40.0 million of regulatory approval milestones, as well as royalties in the low single digits based on net sales of commercialized products, if any. UCB is developing dapirolizumab pegol, a PEGylated antibody fragment, with Biogen, Inc. for the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus. However, given the current phase of development of this product and the uncertainty in clinical development, we have excluded these milestones from the transaction price for this agreement.

We have not sold our rights to receive these milestones or royalties from dapirolizumab pegol under the APA for the sale of the Facility, and the assignment of the supply agreements to Gannet BioChem does not alter the potential milestones and potential royalties payable by UCB to us pursuant to the collaboration agreement for dapirolizumab pegol nor the non-cash royalties payable under our collaboration agreement for CIMZIA®.