Sosei Heptares and Takeda have entered into new strategic multi-target research, development and commercialisation partnership to combine Sosei’s structure-based drug design capabilities with Takeda’s discovery, development and therapeutic area expertise.

The collaboration sets out to discover, develop and commercialise novel molecules, including small molecules and biologics, that modulate G protein-coupled receptor (“GPCR”) targets, and will initially focus on novel, high-priority targets to address multiple gastrointestinal diseases.

Sosei has announced that under the terms of the agreement it is eligible to receive up to $26 million in upfront and near-term payments, in addition to research funding over the duration, as well as future development, commercialisation and net sales-based milestone payments that may exceed $1.2 billion.

Dr. Malcolm Weir, executive VP and chief R&D officer of Sosei Heptares, said that the two companies have “enjoyed a strong relationship over the years, with its venture arm having been an early investor in Heptares.”

He continued to say that the “newly announced partnership is the culmination of recent discussions to identify new and exciting programs where our combined expertise can be directed towards challenging diseases and targets to deliver new medicines for patients.”

Sosei is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on net sales of any licensed products by Takeda resulting from the partnership, as well as Takeda receiving exclusive global rights to develop and commercialise therapeutic agents for each novel target through specified pharmacological approaches in the collaboration.