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news.San Francisco-based biotech Exelixis and New York-headquartered Bristol-Myers Squibb have formed a research and development agreement to search for treatments targeting a certain receptor implicated in a variety of cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
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The companies will work together to discover, develop and commercialize novel therapies targeted against the liver X receptor (LXR), a nuclear hormone receptor thought to play a role in a number of different disorders.
Bristol-Myers will pay Exelixis $17.5 million in addition to R&D funding of approximately $10 million per year for an initial period of two years. Exelixis may also receive pre-specified development and regulatory milestones totaling approximately $140 million per product for up to two products from the collaboration, as well as sales milestones and royalties.
Under the collaboration the companies will jointly identify drug candidates that are ready for further studies, with the aim of registering the compounds as investigational drugs. Bristol-Myers will undertake further preclinical development and would be responsible for clinical development, regulatory, manufacturing and marketing of such compounds.
Dr Francis Cuss, senior vice president of drug discovery for Bristol- Myers said: “We believe that LXR agonists, by triggering reverse cholesterol transport and reducing inflammation in vessel walls, have significant potential to treat atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.”