Boston — Antares Therapeutics Inc. has entered a strategic collaboration with Novartis to discover, develop and commercialize small-molecule treatments targeting historically difficult-to-drug cancers.
Under the agreement, Antares will receive an upfront payment of $105 million and could earn up to $1.8 billion in additional option, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments across the programs. The company is also eligible for tiered royalties on global net sales reaching the low double-digit range.
Antares will lead the research and use its proprietary drug discovery platform to develop highly selective medicines against a limited number of oncology targets until Novartis exercises its options.
The biotechnology company will continue advancing its wholly owned and partnered portfolio of precision medicines for cancer and other serious diseases.
“From the outset, our goal has been to build a discovery engine that systematically unlocks high-value, challenging targets and delivers first-in-class precision medicines,” said Adam Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Antares. “This collaboration lets us scale that engine alongside Novartis’ world-class development capabilities and global reach, so we can translate our science into transformative therapies for patients faster than either of us could alone. It builds on the work of a team that has consistently produced highly selective medicines against some of the hardest targets in drug discovery.”
The collaboration combines Antares’ covalent drug discovery capabilities, including proprietary screening libraries, chemical proteomics, structure-based computational chemistry and machine-learning tools, with Novartis’ research, development and global commercialization resources.
“Novartis is committed to advancing innovative approaches to cancer drug discovery and expanding the boundaries of what’s possible in oncology treatment,” said Fiona Marshall, President of Biomedical Research at Novartis. “Many of the most compelling targets today in oncology have historically been considered undruggable. We believe this collaboration has the potential to unlock a new wave of targeted therapies and bring meaningful advances to patients.”
