Deal could be worth over $290 million if all milestones are met for each of two targets.
Pieris and Daiichi Sankyo signed a a collaboration and license agreement under which Pieris will use its Anticalin scaffold technology against two targets to be provided by Daiichi Sankyo. Pieris will receive more than €7 million ($10.2 million) upon signing of the collaboration agreement for the two targets.
The partnership could generate for Pieris more than €100 million (approximately $145.1 million) per target in license fees, funding, and milestones provided the nominated Anticalin achieves full commercialization. Pieris is also entitled to tiered, mid- to mid-high single-digit royalties.
Upon discovery and achievement by Pieris of early preclinical development milestones for lead candidates, Daiichi Sankyo will assume responsibility for further development of the Anticalin compounds. Daiichi Sankyo will have exclusive marketing rights worldwide for all products to be produced through the agreement.
Anticalins are recombinantly engineered lipocalins, endogenous low-molecular weight human proteins that naturally bind, store, and transport a wide spectrum of molecules. Lipocalins’ diversity has yielded a class of drugs that provides specificity and affinity against a wide spectrum of targets, exhibits the safety of an endogenous protein performing an endogenous function, and is durable, creating greater flexibility of formulation and delivery, Pieris explains. Through rational diversification of the lipocalin regions that are responsible for ligand binding, the company has created phage display libraries.
