Big Pharmas remain stuck to the idea of molecular glue degraders. The latest company to see an opportunity is Japan’s Eisai, which has signed a $1.5 billion biobucks pact with SEED Therapeutics for undisclosed neurodegeneration and oncology targets.
The agreement will see Pennsylvania-based SEED take the lead on preclinical work to identity the targets, including E3 ligase selection and picking out the appropriate molecular glue degraders. Eisai will then have exclusive rights to further develop the resulting compounds.
In return, SEED is in line for up to $1.5 billion in potential upfront, preclinical, regulatory and sales-based milestone payments, although the companies didn’t offer a detailed breakdown of the financial details. Should any drugs make it to market, SEED will also receive tiered royalties.
“SEED has a cutting-edge technology platform to discover a class of molecular-glue target protein degraders, one of the most highlighted modalities in modern drug discovery,” Eisai’s Chief Scientific Officer Takashi Owa, Ph.D., said in the release.
Owa name-checked Celgene’s blockbuster anti-myeloma drug Revlimid as an example of where the “molecular-glue class has been successful in the oncology field,” but said today’s collaboration will “also focus on utilizing this modality in the neurology field.”
Alongside today’s licensing deal, Eisai has led on a $24 million series A-3 funding round for SEED. This is only the round’s first close, according to this morning’s release, with a second close due in the fourth quarter.
The biotech said the money will go toward advancing its oral RBM39 degrader into a phase 1 study next year for biomarker-driven cancer indications. This program builds on “Eisai’s pioneering discovery of a class of RBM39 degraders over three decades,” the company noted.
SEED, a subsidiary of cancer therapeutics biotech BeyondSpring, also needs the cash to move forward with its tau degrader program for Alzheimer’s disease, with the aim of submitting a request with the FDA in 2026 to begin human trials. Funds will also be used to scale up its targeted protein degradation platform.
Eisai is only the latest drugmaker keen to paste some molecular glue candidates into its pipeline. Fellow Japanese pharma Takeda signed a $1.2 billion biobucks deal with Degron Therapeutics in May, while Novo Nordisk secured a similar $1.46 billion pact with Neomorph in February.
SEED has also been the recipient of Big Pharma attention in the past, with Eli Lilly paying $20 million in upfront cash and equity in 2020 to discover new chemical entities against undisclosed targets.