Novartis announced on June 24 it will pay $105 million in cash and offer Antares Therapeutics up to $1.8 billion in potential milestone payments as part of a new collaboration aimed at developing precision medicines for hard-to-treat cancers.
According to details released Wednesday, Antares, a spinout from Scorpion Therapeutics, will lead all research activities using its discovery engine. The company will focus on multiple historically undruggable targets, while Novartis retains the option to advance the program further.
Antares plans to strengthen its discovery platform by integrating covalent drug design, chemical proteomics, structure-driven computation, and machine learning for small molecule discovery and development. The Boston-based biotech emerged last year with $177 million in funding and three preclinical precision medicine assets after Eli Lilly acquired Scorpion’s lead PI3Kα program. Adam Friedman transitioned from leading Scorpion to becoming CEO of Antares. The company also has partnerships with AstraZeneca and Pierre Fabre Laboratories.
Antares’ lead cancer candidate is expected to enter human trials later this year. "From the outset, our goal has been to build a discovery engine that systematically unlocks high-value, challenging targets and delivers first-in-class precision medicines," Antares CEO Adam Friedman said in a prepared statement. "This collaboration lets us scale that engine alongside Novartis’ world-class development capabilities and global reach, so we can translate our science into transformative therapies for patients faster than either of us could alone."
Oncology remains one of Novartis’ main areas of strategic focus. Earlier this year, the company reached an agreement to acquire Synnovation Therapeutics’ pan-mutant-selective PI3Kα inhibitor for $2 billion upfront as part of its ongoing efforts in cancer treatment development.
"Many of the most compelling targets today in oncology have historically been considered undruggable," said Fiona Marshall, President of Biomedical Research at Novartis. "We believe this collaboration has the potential to unlock a new wave of targeted therapies and bring meaningful advances to patients."
