Avila Signs Covalent Drug Pact with Sanofi-Aventis
By Bio-IT World Staff
December 20, 2010 | Avila Therapeutics, the Waltham, MA-based drug discovery company commercializing covalently bound small molecule compounds, has announced a significant strategic alliance with Sanofi-Aventis.
“Today we are proud to announce another key step in our advancement of the targeted covalent drug class -- the formation of a significant new strategic alliance with Sanofi-Aventis,” said Avila’s co-founder and chief science officer, Juswinder Singh.
“This partnership encompasses multiple discovery programs in oncology and is a valuable strategic relationship for us, with upfront and research support payments of up to $40 million and potential cumulative value of over $800 million. Importantly, Avila may retain and advance one of the collaboration programs.”
As profiled in Bio-IT World in early 2010, Avila Therapeutics is building its drug discovery pipeline around the development of small molecule compounds that bind to their targets covalently and irreversibly. (Most small molecules bind their targets reversibly.) In the newly announced agreement, Sanofi-Aventis obtains a worldwide exclusive license to develop and commercialize a half-dozen oncology compounds resulting from the partnership.
The agreement calls for the two companies to work on the design of targeted covalent drugs targeting six key signaling proteins in cancer that are difficult to approach with traditional therapeutics. Avila is entitled to retain the rights to one of the six programs at the conclusion of the initial three-year partnership, but Sanofi-Aventis retains a right of first negotiation for such program should Avila decide to seek a partner.
In addition to the potential $40 million in research support payments, Avila is eligible to receive pre-clinical, clinical & regulatory milestone payments up to $154 million per program if the respective products gain approval in the US, Europe and Japan.
Sanofi-Aventis’ head of oncology, Debasish Roychowdhury, said that Avila’s expertise in designing targeted covalent drugs “offers a new way to solve difficult pharmacological challenges in oncology” and that “adds to our growing portfolio of research capabilities that will provide medicines which substantially improve patient outcomes.”
“Sanofi-aventis has a clear vision to transform cancer research, and its commitment to innovation has been very tangible to us as we worked together to establish this alliance,” said Katrine Bosley, Avila’s president and CEO.