PTC and CV Therapeutics Announce Collaboration and License Arrangement
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PTC Therapeutics, Inc. and CV Therapeutics, Inc. have announced that they have entered into an exclusive research collaboration and licensing arrangement for the development of orally bioavailable small molecules through the application of PTC's proprietary GEMS (Gene Expression Modulation by Small-Molecules) technology.
Pursuant to the collaboration, PTC and CV Therapeutics will jointly select five targets, including targets with the potential to raise HDL, through a collaborative process of determining the applicability of the GEMS technology to targets of interest.
Under the terms of the collaboration and license agreement, CV Therapeutics will make an initial payment to PTC of $10 million.
The initial payment consists of a cash upfront payment of $2 million and two loans for an aggregate of $8 million.
One of the loans is forgivable over the course of the research term provided the agreement remains in effect, and the other is convertible into PTC equity.
CV Therapeutics has the exclusive option to enter into one or more worldwide, exclusive licenses, on a target-by-target basis, for collaboration compounds it decides to take forward, and will be obligated to pay PTC royalties on worldwide net sales of products developed pursuant to the collaboration.
If CV Therapeutics licenses and commercializes a product based on each of the five selected targets during the term of the agreement, PTC could earn milestone payments of up to $335 million if all specified development, regulatory and commercial goals are achieved over the product life cycle.
PTC retains the option to co-fund research and development for increased royalties or co-promotion rights.
"We are very excited to start our collaboration with PTC, which we believe has the potential to deliver innovative oral treatments for well-validated targets in important areas of cardiovascular disease, such as dyslipidemia and diabetes," said Brent K. Blackburn, Ph.D., senior vice president, drug discovery and development of CV Therapeutics.
"This alliance complements our internal research efforts with PTC's proprietary GEMS technology that allows the potential development of small-molecule drugs to address challenging targets."
"We are extremely pleased to enter into this collaboration with CV Therapeutics," said Stuart Peltz, president and chief executive officer of PTC Therapeutics.
"This collaboration is part of our strategy of applying our GEMS technology to therapeutic areas outside of our core research areas through collaborators who bring disease-specific expertise."
"With CV Therapeutics, we have a collaborator with a significant presence and experience in molecular cardiology and drug development."
