AstraZeneca is extending its oncology partnership with Proteros biostructures, adding a new drug discovery program and boosting the potential biobucks payout for the German life sciences company by $75 million.
The latest announcement builds on a previous deal signed by the two companies last year, where AstraZeneca pledged up to $65 million in milestone payments, on top of research funding and royalties, to Munich-based Proteros to jointly discover and develop new small molecules for an array of oncology assets.
As part of AstraZeneca's ongoing attempts to ramp up its cancer pipeline, it has now expanded on the partnership with a new multiyear agreement that includes the development of small-molecule inhibitors targeting a second cancer-associated epigenetic protein. Under the new deal, Proteros—a private company centered on a discovery engine aimed at unlocking technically challenging drug targets—is in line for $75 million in success-based biobucks.
Proteros is no stranger to these kinds of deals, supporting more than 250 pharmaceutical and biotech partners across the U.S., Europe and Japan.
“The expansion of our agreement with AstraZeneca with an additional drug discovery program reflects our successful ongoing collaboration to identify selective inhibitors for notoriously challenging disease targets,” Torsten Neuefeind, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Proteros, said in a May 16 release. “This agreement strengthens our collaboration with a global biopharmaceutical leader and we look forward to joining forces again to discover novel inhibitors with the potential to effectively treat cancer patients in the future.”