Anima Biotech today announced an agreement with Lilly for the discovery and development of translation inhibitors for several target proteins by using Anima’s Translation Control Therapeutics platform.
The multi-year agreement is structured as an exclusive collaboration around several undisclosed Lilly targets. Anima will use its technology platform to discover lead candidates that are translation inhibitors of the Lilly targets. Lilly will be responsible for clinical development and commercialization of products resulting from the collaboration.
Under the terms of the agreement, Anima will receive $30 million in upfront payments and $14 million in research funding. Anima is eligible to receive up to $1.05 billion if all future development and commercial milestones are achieved. Anima will additionally be entitled to low to mid single-digit tiered royalties on sales of any Lilly products resulting from the collaboration.
“We are excited to collaborate with Lilly in the discovery of new drugs for some of the world’s most challenging diseases. Small molecule drugs work by binding to disease-causing proteins to modify their chemical activity but most proteins lack accessible binding sites and as result, many diseases remain without effective treatments. Anima’s Translation Control Therapeutics platform is a new strategy against these undruggable target proteins. Rather than attempt to drug them after they are already made, we discover drugs that work one step before, by inhibiting (decreasing) or increasing the actual production by ribosomes of those proteins. This different approach is based on our novel science and patented technology and we believe it can lead to many new drugs,” said Yochi Slonim, Anima Biotech’s co-founder and CEO.
