Ubiquigent Limited has entered into a multi-year strategic R&D collaboration agreement with FORMA Therapeutics for the design and development of novel deubiquitylase (DUB) enzyme inhibitors.

Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Ubiquigent will receive an upfront payment with research support and is eligible for possible additional milestones payments.

The collaboration builds on an existing long term relationship between the parties whereby FORMA has accessed Ubiquigent’s DUBprofiler™ platform for the screening of test compounds.

This expanded partnership agreement brings together the strengths of both parties and leverages Ubiquigent’s chemistry and biology platforms to design novel DUB inhibitors. 

Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Ubiquigent will design novel DUB inhibitors and evaluate them using its biology platform.

During this term, FORMA will have exclusive access and option for WW license to all compounds and associated data from Ubiquigent libraries generated under the alliance.

Furthermore, Ubiquigent will work exclusively for the benefit of FORMA on a specific defined number of DUB targets.

Ubiquigent is a world-leading provider of biological and chemistry based assay services and expertise in the emerging space of ubiquitin-system drug discovery.

Historically, one of the main rate limiting factors has been the availability of small molecules to support early drug development.

This agreement with FORMA validates Ubiquigent’s strategy of developing highly-targeted, small molecule libraries focused on unlocking the potential of DUB enzymes for the development of novel therapeutics. 

In parallel with this latest collaboration, Ubiquigent will continue to provide access to its ubiquitin system focused capabilities to the wider scientific community including its Research Tools, Drug Discovery Services and non-exclusive compound libraries.

It will also continue to explore other opportunities for more strategic collaborations in the ubiquitin field.