Idera to receive milestone payment from Novartis

Under the terms of the agreement, the payment was triggered by the initiation of a Phase I clinical study by Novartis of QAX935. QAX935 is a novel agonist of Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) exclusively licensed by Idera to Novartis.

Previously, Idera and Novartis entered into research collaboration and license agreements for the discovery, optimization, development, and commercialization of TLR9 drug candidates targeting asthma and allergy based on Idera’s proprietary immune modulatory oligonucleotide (IMO) technology platform.

Tim Sullivan, vice president of development programs at Idera, said: “We are pleased that our collaboration with Novartis has progressed to clinical evaluation of QAX935. QAX935 is one of several TLR9 agonists created by us during the research phase of this collaboration and derived from our chemistry-based drug discovery approach to TLR-targeted compounds.”