Japan-based PeptiDream Inc has announced an expansion of its peptide discovery collaboration with Swiss-based firm Novartis Pharma AG. Under the multi-programme agreement, PeptiDream will use its proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) technology to identify and optimise novel macrocyclic peptides against targets selected by Novartis, for potential conjugation to radionuclides (to which Novartis refers to as “radioligand therapies” or RLTs) or other applications for both therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.

This new agreement expands upon the peptide-drug conjugate (PDC) collaboration announced in 2019, and further highlights the two companies’ long-standing discovery efforts, originally initiated in 2010, and extended multiple times, including Novartis’s licensing of PeptiDream’s PDPS technology in 2015.

Under the terms of the agreement, PeptiDream will receive an upfront payment of $180 million (28.03 billion JPY) from Novartis. In addition, PeptiDream is eligible to receive up to $2.71 billion (422.03 billion JPY) in payments based on the achievement of specified development, regulatory and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties on net sales of any such products arising from the collaboration.

According to Patrick C. Reid, Ph.D., CEO of PeptiDream, “As macrocyclic peptides continue to be the ideal vectors for the targeted deliver of a variety of therapeutic payloads, PeptiDream continues to build an extensive pipeline of partnered as well as internal peptide-conjugate programmes.”