Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) has recently entered into a development and commercialization agreement with Nuevolution for the novel oncology and neuroscience therapies discovered through the Nuevolution Chemetics platform.
The partnership is expecting to generate $400 million per identified target. However, both companies did not specify how many targets they hope to identify under their collaborative work.
Terms of Agreement
The terms of the agreement indicate that Amgen has the exclusive option to obtain all rights to the therapies discovered under the partnership. Should it fully exercise the exclusive option, the company will be obliged to pay a license fee to Nuevolution. Moreover, Nuevolution will be entitled to payments in terms of research, development, and commercialization milestones; and future royalties.
Nuevolution will oversee the earlier stages of the development program as Amgen works on preclinical and clinical developments, and worldwide marketing. Moreover, Amgen will take charge during the late-stage processes.
“Amgen is pleased to enter this agreement with Nuevolution to leverage their platform to identify small-molecule compounds for targets that are difficult using conventional methods,” said Alexander Kamb, Ph.D., Amgen Senior Vice President (SVP) of Discovery Research.
Nuevolution’s R&D Efforts
Weeks ago, Nuevolution had presented the preclinical and preliminary toxicology data of NUE7770 from the BET-BD1 clinical development program. NEU7770 is being tested on mouse models for lupus and idiopathic lung fibrosis.
The preliminary results from a two-week animal toxicology study have shown that NUE7770 is not associated with mortality and weight loss even at a high dose. On the other hand, control compound JQ1 has been found out to be associated with a high mortality rate even at a low dose.
Amgen is the latest company to sign a deal with Nuevolution. Over the past few years, to further its research and development efforts, the latter has already collaborated with numerous pharmaceutical giants such as Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (NYSE:GSK) (GSK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK), and Novartis AG (ADR) (NYSE:NVS).
On Tuesday, Amgen is up by 0.13% at $167.53; GSK by 0.51% at $43.44; and Johnson & Johnson by 0.01% at $118.82. Meanwhile, Merck is down by 0.10% at $62.46; and Novartis by 0.18% at $78.86.