Date: 2014-10-07
Type of information: Development agreement
Compound: inhibitors of tankyrase
Company: Merck Serono, a Merck KGaA company (Germany) The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) (UK) the Wellcome Trust (UK)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: development licensing
Action mechanism: poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor Tankyrases are poly (ADP) ribose polymerases (PARPs).
Disease:
Details: * On October 7, 2014, Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), and the Wellcome Trust, London, announced a co-development and license agreement building on two independent research programs at both the ICR and Merck Serono to identify inhibitors of tankyrase, an enzyme of the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase family. The collaboration will be jointly funded by Merck Serono and the Wellcome Trust. The existing drug discovery program at the ICR is supported by a Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery Award.
In a joint effort, a team led by Dr. Chris Lord and Professor Alan Ashworth at the ICR and a research group at Merck Serono will aim to progress chemical compounds that have emerged from both organizations’ tankyrase inhibitor programs towards clinical development. At the end of the collaboration period, Merck Serono will take over full responsibility for the selected clinical development candidate, with the goal of bringing a new cancer therapeutic drug to patients.
Financial terms: Under the terms of the agreement, Merck Serono will make milestone payments based on achieving regulatory and sales goals plus royalty payments on net sales of future products discovered or developed under the agreement.
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