Under the deal, Aurigene will receive $8m of upfront licensing payment for rights to the company’s pre-existing programme.
The company will also be eligible for up to $60m in potential clinical development and regulatory milestones and up to $370m in potential commercial milestones, and royalties based on annual net sales.
Olema Oncology will provide funding to Aurigene to facilitate the ongoing discovery during the research period.
Olema Oncology CEO and president Sean Bohen said: “We continue to have confidence in OP-1250 and its potential to become the endocrine therapy of choice for ER+ / HER2- breast cancer and believe this collaboration will give us an opportunity to expand our focus on new treatments for cancer in women.
“Aurigene has an impressive history of successful collaborations and combined with Olema’s deep understanding of cancer biology and extensive development expertise, we believe this is a strong strategic opportunity to enhance our growing discovery portfolio.”
Together, the companies will also direct the preclinical work.
If successful, Olema will be responsible for the lead clinical development along with the regulatory and commercial activities for the therapies.
The company will be well capitalised to provide funds for the planned research and development activities into the second half of 2024.
Aurigene CEO Murali Ramachandra said: “This agreement with Olema further validates Aurigene’s proven expertise in discovery and preclinical development of effective cancer therapeutics.
“We look forward to the continued development of an Aurigene program, which will now be ably supported by the extensive development capability of Olema.”