Yuhan Corp. made a regulatory filing Monday saying that the company is to receive $65 million in milestone payment from Janssen Biotech.

This is roughly 4.3 percent of Yuhan’s total consolidated equity capital, which as of Monday stands at 1.65 trillion won ($1.48 billion) -- strengthening the company’s financial soundness.

Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company, is researching the effects of the combined use of its bispecific antibody amivantamab and Yuhan’s third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor lazertinib, in treatment of non-small cell lung cancer patients whose epidermal growth factor receptors mutated, meaning that they are unresponsive to existing treatment methods.

In a separate press release dated Friday, Janssen stated that a phase 1b study nicknamed “Chrysalis” showed that amivantamab and lazertinib together achieved a 100 percent overall response rate in 20 treatment-naive patients.

Amivantamab was administered intravenously and lazertinib orally.

Based on the promising results from phase 1b Chrysalis, a phase 3 “Mariposa” study of amivantamab in combination with lazertinib was initiated. The Mariposa will assess the efficacy of amivantamab paired with lazertinib, against the efficacy of amivantamab paired with osimertinib.

Osimertinib, more commonly known by its trade name Tagrisso, is so far the only market-approved third-generation TKI. It is traded under the name Tagrisso by AstraZeneca, for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer patients with specific mutations.

Yuhan is pursuing further studies on its own across multiple nations to prove lazertinib’s standalone use for non-small cell lung cancer patients.

At the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting held May, Yuhan put forth clinical test results saying that not only has lazertinib shown effect for NSCLC patients, it has also worked for lung cancer patients with brain metastasis.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)