This multi-year deal builds on the ongoing collaboration with AstraZeneca announced in June last year, to include the development of small molecule inhibitors targeting a second cancer-related epigenetic protein.
As per the terms of this new deal, Proteros will get research funding and will also be eligible for success-based research, development, and commercial milestone payments of up to $75m besides tiered royalties on annual net sales.
The collaboration brings together Proteros’ expertise in the identification and characterisation of inhibitors with new binding mechanisms for technically challenging drug targets with AstraZeneca’s expertise in the discovery and development of oncology medicines.
Proteros CEO Dr. Torsten Neuefeind said: “The expansion of our agreement with AstraZeneca with an additional drug discovery program reflects our successful ongoing collaboration to identify selective inhibitors for notoriously challenging disease targets.
“This agreement strengthens our collaboration with a global biopharmaceutical leader and we look forward to joining forces again to discover novel inhibitors with the potential to effectively treat cancer patients in the future.”
Proteros claimed that its platform will allow high selectivity to a particular target variant within and across multiple protein families through biochemical, biophysical and cellular assays backed by quick turnaround in the structural determination of drug-target interactions by X-ray crystallography and cryo-Electron Microscopy technologies.