Avila Signs Agreement With Novartis To Develop Novel Covalent Drug Candidate

Avila has entered into an option agreement with Novartis to develop novel covalent drug program from Avila’s research pipeline, in combination with an equity investment.

The agreement includes upfront and potential milestones payments to Avila totaling over $200 million plus royalties.

Avila’s covalent drugs offer the potential to treat many serious diseases through a novel mechanism called protein silencing.

Katrine Bosley, CEO of Avila, said: “This relationship both enables us to advance our third program and also underscores the value of our platform to create covalent drugs. The agreement is a strong complement to Novartis’ equity investment in Avila, and together these steps represent an important evolution in Avila’s strategic development.

We anticipate establishing a select number of strategic relationships in order to take full advantage of the breadth and depth of the Avilomics platform, and we’re very pleased to have Novartis as the first,” he added.