Curve’s drug discovery platform will support the identification and optimisation of novel small molecule drug candidates against MSD targets
Merck Research Laboratories in South San Francisco, California, US. (Credit: Coolcaesar/Wikipedia)
Curve Therapeutics and MSD, the trade name of Merck & Co., have entered a global research collaboration to discover and validate modulators of up to five therapeutic targets.
The collaboration, which initially focuses on oncology and neurology indications, will leverage Curve’s Microcycle technology for identifying drug candidates against MSD targets.
Under the terms of the agreement, Curve will receive an upfront payment, in addition to royalty on the net sales of any approved products resulting from the partnership.
The company is eligible to receive research, development and commercial milestones totalling up to $ 1.7bn, subject to the success of all five programmes.
Under the deal, Curve will be responsible for performing high throughput mammalian cell-based functional screening, hit characterisation, data-mining and analysis, and Microcycle optimisation.
MSD is responsible for lead optimisation, clinical development, manufacturing and commercialisation of compounds identified under the collaboration.
MSD research laboratories discovery vice president chemistry Rob Garbaccio said: “At MSD we are committed to bringing forward medicines for many of the world’s most challenging diseases.
“We look forward to collaborating with the scientists at Curve to evaluate new ways to treat complex diseases.”
Curve is a privately-held biotechnology company established based on Microcycle research conducted at the Department of Chemistry, University of Southampton, UK.
The company has developed a mammalian cell platform technology for functional screening and enrichment of diverse Microcycle libraries.
Its functional drug discovery platform enables direct discovery of biologically active molecules against targets that are hard to address using conventional methods.
Also, the platform improves diverse Microcycle libraries in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells to identify molecules with desired biological activity against a therapeutic target.
The compact size of Microcycles allows them to be transformed to non-peptidic small molecules for lead optimisation and development, said the company.
Curve CEO Simon Kerry said: “This collaboration is a major milestone for Curve and an important endorsement of our ground-breaking drug discovery platform.
“Working with MSD on selected therapeutic targets will complement Curve’s in-house drug discovery and development programmes.”