Under the agreement, Arrowhead will receive research funding and could be eligible for development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments of approximately $32.8m for each development candidate, an additional milestone payments for a second indication and royalties on worldwide sales.
Arrowhead president and chief executive officer Chris Anzalone said Shire’s expertise in developing innovative medicines for rare diseases makes it an ideal partner for the company to advance platform of human-derived Homing Peptides.
”Moreover, this agreement underscores our strategy of building value by developing an internal pipeline of PDCs and RNAi therapeutics and by working with partners to improve their proprietary medicines with our peptide targeting,"Anzalone added.
Shire research and development head Phil Vickers said,"With this novel platform technology, Shire has the potential to move into a wider range of orphan diseases."
As part of the agreement, Arrowhead will recognise peptides that will selectively bind and internalize in an unrevealed tissue type and that can deliver a therapeutic payload to the tissue.
Shire will have feasibility of license to develop and commercialize a therapeutic agent targeted by the designated peptides as well as be responsible for clinical development and commercialization of products arising from the collaboration.