Bristol-Myers Squibb has hooked up with French biotech Oncodesign to discover develop and commercialise novel macrocyclic compounds for cancer and other serious illnesses with no known effective treatment.
The alliance will utilise Oncodesign’s platform of small macrocycles, Nanocyclix, to generate novel compounds for targets of interest to BMS.
These small macrocycles are highly potent and selective and have favourable characteristics allowing optimisation “beyond what is typically possible with conventional molecular designs,” according to the biotech.
Under the deal, Oncodesign is primarily responsible for hit to lead and lead optimisation up to the candidate selection stage for oncology targets and potentially for certain non-oncology targets.
Bristol-Myers Squibb takes sole responsibility for completing preclinical and clinical development of all products arising from the collaboration and for their global commercialisation.
The French group will bag an upfront payment of $3 million and research, development and regulatory based milestone payments of up to $80 million per target, as well as tiered royalties and sales-based milestones.
