US-based precision oncology platform company Tavros Therapeutics has teamed up with Vividion Therapeutics, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical company Bayer.
The collaboration aims to discover four oncology targets, for the initial period of five years.
Under the terms of the partnership agreement, Vividion will make an upfront payment of $17.5m in cash.
Tavros would receive up to $430.5m in potential future payments based on meeting the prespecified preclinical, clinical development, and commercial milestones.
It will also receive royalties on sales of certain products emerging from the collaboration.
Vividion holds an option to pursue up to five potential additional targets, by making additional payments of up to $482m.
Tavros CEO and co-founder Eoin McDonnell said: “The future of cancer treatment lies in the precision targeting of therapies in the optimal clinical settings.
“We’re thrilled to launch our work with Vividion and harness our combined expertise to reach patients with difficult-to-treat cancers by uncovering and drugging the next generation of high-value targets and augmenting the efficacy of emerging compounds.”
The collaboration will combine Tavros’ precision oncology platform with Vividion’s precision therapeutics capabilities to target traditionally undruggable targets.
Tavros will leverage its functional and computational genomics technologies to discover novel targets and biomarkers in areas of high unmet clinical need.
Vividion is focused on developing precision therapeutics for cancers and immune disorders.
Through its chemoproteomic platform, the company advances a diversified array of highly selective small molecule therapeutics in oncology and immunology.
Vividion Therapeutics CEO Jeffrey Hatfield said: “This collaboration brings together two orthogonal, highly innovative and synergistic approaches to drug discovery that will address both of these challenges.
“Vividion has the ability to find and drug previously unknown, or cryptic, functional binding pockets on oncology and immunology targets of high interest, while Tavros has the potential to uncover previously unknown synthetic vulnerabilities or dependencies in deadly tumour cells.
“We believe this powerful combination of leading-edge technologies has the potential to deliver multiple breakthrough discoveries for cancer patients in need.”
