Proteros biostructures GmbH Signs Second Oncology Collaboration With Merck Sharp & Dohme On Epigenetic Target
Proteros to receive upfront and research funding plus milestone payments of up to $167 million plus tiered royalties
Martinsried/Munich, Germany – 22 November 2016 – Proteros biostructures GmbH today announced that the company has entered into a second research agreement with Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA (known as MSD outside the US and Canada). The new collaboration is aimed at developing small molecule compounds against an additional epigenetic target for the potential treatment of various cancers.
Under the terms of the agreement, Proteros receives an upfront payment and research funding and will be eligible to receive development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments up to $167 million plus tiered royalties. Additional details of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Dr. Torsten Neuefeind, CEO of Proteros commented: “We are pleased to expand our relationship with MSD just one year after starting our first collaboration in epigenetic drug discovery. This new collaboration will benefit from our previous and ongoing work with the team at MSD and we look forward to a further successful partnership, which potentially could transform the treatment of many cancers.”
About epigenetics and Proteros’ expertise in epigenetics:
Epigenetics (“outside of genetic”) addresses a novel paradigm in the organization of genetic information and covers a broad class of enzymes and hundreds of potential drug targets. Epigenetic changes - unlike genetic alterations - provide the potential to reverse disease processes. Reversing those changes with epigenetic drugs is a fundamentally new opportunity in drug discovery. Proteros’ proprietary nucleosomal epigenetic assay technologies (NEAT) and the structure guided discovery platform allow the opening of gateways to address epigenetic mechanisms for new medicines.
About Proteros biostructures
Proteros, Martinsried/Munich, is a Germany-based, private biotech company focused on drug discovery for novel and technically demanding targets. One particular focus is on epigenetic targets. The company is today working for most of the largest pharmaceutical and biotech companies in Europe, US and Japan in collaborative relationships and has further built a pipeline of partnered and proprietary discovery projects with a strong focus on epigenetic targets. Co-founded by Nobel Laureate Prof. Robert Huber, Proteros has a strong heritage in structural biology and provides one of the largest and most powerful platforms for structure guided drug discovery. Epigenetic targets are predicted to become one of the fastest growing target classes in Pharma within the next 10 years. More information can be found at http://www.proteros.com/.
