Bayer has acquired Vividion Therapeutics, a US-headquartered biopharmaceutical company focused on using discovery technologies to unlock ‘high value, traditionally undruggable targets’ with precision therapeutics.
Identification of drug candidates for proteins that are considered undruggable is a great challenge in drug discovery. Vividion’s chemoproteomic screening platform is designed to identify previously unknown binding pockets on well-validated protein targets by screening chemical probes against the entire human proteome to assess selectivity.
Vividion’s lead programmes include multiple precision oncology targets and precision immunology targets, such as a transcription factor NRF2 antagonist with potential for the treatment of NRF2 mutant cancers, as well as NRF2 activators for various inflammatory diseases.
Under the terms of the agreement, Bayer will pay $1.5bn upfront and potential success-based milestone payments of up to $500m for full rights to Vividion’s proprietary discovery platform, which comprises three components: a novel chemoproteomic screening technology, an integrated data portal and a proprietary chemistry library.
“About 90% of disease-causing proteins cannot be targeted by current therapies due to the lack of a known addressable binding site. Our proprietary chemoproteomic platform technology addresses the key limitations of conventional screening techniques and allows us to discover previously unknown, or cryptic, functional pockets on the surface of proteins and identify small molecules that selectively bind to those targets,” said Jeff Hatfield, chief executive officer at Vividion.
“When combined with Bayer’s expertise in the development of small molecules to market and patient, an unparalleled position comes into existence to unlock undruggable targets and generate first-in-class novel compounds for the benefit of patients,” he added.
Vividion will continue to operate as an independent organisation while benefiting from Bayer’s experience, infrastructure and reach, the company said in a statement.
