CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Parabilis Medicines has entered a strategic research collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to discover and develop therapeutic candidates using Parabilis’s Helicon peptide platform.
The companies said the collaboration will focus in part on Antibody-Helicon Conjugates, a potential new class of therapies designed to target difficult and historically “undruggable” disease targets. The agreement covers five initial targets across multiple therapeutic areas.
Under the deal, Parabilis is set to receive $125 million from Regeneron, including a $50 million upfront payment and a $75 million equity commitment tied to Parabilis’s next financing, subject to certain conditions. Parabilis could also receive up to about $2.2 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, along with tiered royalties on future sales of approved medicines that come from the collaboration.
Helicons are stabilized, cell-penetrant alpha-helical peptides designed to engage intracellular protein targets, including flat surfaces that are not well suited to traditional small-molecule binding. The companies said the collaboration will explore Helicons both as stand-alone therapies and as part of Antibody-Helicon Conjugates.
Antibody-drug conjugates traditionally use antibodies to deliver drug payloads into target cells. Parabilis said the Antibody-Helicon Conjugates envisioned in the collaboration use a similar delivery concept by pairing antibody-targeted cell access with Helicon payloads designed to selectively modulate specific intracellular proteins.
“Through our own pipeline, we have demonstrated the potential of Helicon peptides to directly inhibit or degrade several disease-driving proteins in oncology that have long been considered out of reach,” said Mathai Mammen, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman, CEO and President of Parabilis Medicines. “We are thrilled to enter into a collaboration with Regeneron that builds on this foundation, combining the intracellular access and binding capabilities of our Helicons against challenging targets with antibodies from Regeneron.”
The companies will collaborate to discover new Helicons and Antibody-Helicon Conjugates. Regeneron will be responsible for advancing resulting candidates through development, manufacturing and worldwide commercialization.
The agreement also allows the companies to pursue additional targets if Regeneron makes additional option payments.
