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news.Polyphor, a Switzerland-based biotech company, has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Novartis. Under the terms of the collaboration, Polyphor will apply its proprietary PEM (Protein Epitope Mimetics) drug discovery technology to identify novel PEMdrug candidates against drug targets of interest to Novartis.
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Novartis will provide Polyphor with an upfront payment, research funding and milestone payments as candidate molecules progress through the drug discovery process, preclinical and clinical development and onto the market. In addition, Polyphor is eligible to receive royalties on the commercial sales of approved products.
PEMdrugs have been shown to interfere in a highly potent and selective manner with large surface protein-protein interactions and other challenging drug targets.
Polyphor will be responsible for the design, synthesis and optimization of PEMdrug candidates and Novartis will be responsible for the clinical development and commercialization of jointly developed products. Polyphor will apply its proprietary drug discovery tools, including the PEMfinder substance library and PEMphage Technology, to identify and optimize novel PEMdrug candidates.
Jean-Pierre Obrecht, CEO of Polyphor, said: “The combination of Novartis’ expertise regarding the therapeutic targets they have selected and PEM Technology represents an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the broad applicability of our technology platform and our drug discovery capabilities.”