Dundee Spinout partners with big Pharma

Amphista Therapeutics, a University of Dundee spin-out is collaborating with Merck Healthcare and Bristol Myers Squibb to leverage the company’s targeted protein degradation (TPD) technology and generate therapeutics in multiple disease areas.  Together the projects could be potentially worth more than $2 billion.

The project with Merck Healthcare will work on discovery and development of small molecule protein degraders for an initial three targets in oncology and immunology. Amphista will receive an upfront payment and R&D funding of up to $44 million, with success-based milestone payments of up to $1 billion.

The company will also receive an upfront payment of $30 million from Bristol Myers Squibb, with potential additional payments of up to $1.25 billion. Bristol Myers Squibb will be granted a global exclusive license to the degraders developed as part of the collaboration and will be responsible for further development and commercialisation activities.

Amphista creates first-in-class therapeutics that harness the body’s natural processes to degrade and remove disease-causing proteins selectively and efficiently. The company is a spinout from the lab of Professor Alessio Ciulli (pictured), at the University’s School of Life Sciences.

Nicola Thompson, CEO of Amphista, said, “We are extremely pleased to enter into these collaborations, which are a validation of the progress we have made in TPD research and the potential of our EclipsysTM next-generation TPD platform.”

TPD exploits the body’s own cellular waste disposal system to destroy disease-causing proteins, rather than inhibiting their function. This new approach provides hope of treating diseases previously thought to be undruggable and is applicable to diverse areas including oncology, dermatology, immunology, respiratory and central nervous system diseases.

Degrading rather than inhibiting a target protein offers several advantages such as better drug response at lower doses as well as reduced side effects and disease resistance.

Amphista’s technology is specifically designed to develop next generation TPD therapeutics based on mechanistic insights and novel chemistry approaches.

More information online