The companies will jointly select five targets, including targets with the potential to raise “good cholesterol”, for development with PTC’s GEMS (gene expression modulation by small-molecules) technology.
The initial $10 million payment consists of a cash upfront payment of $2 million and two loans for an aggregate of $8 million.
If CV Therapeutics licenses and commercializes a product based on each of the five selected targets during the term of the agreement, PTC could earn milestone payments of up to $335 million if all specified development, regulatory and commercial goals are achieved over the product life cycle.
“We are very excited to start our collaboration with PTC, which we believe has the potential to deliver innovative oral treatments for well-validated targets in important areas of cardiovascular disease, such as dyslipidemia and diabetes,” said Dr Brent Blackburn, senior vice president, drug discovery and development of CV Therapeutics.