Print“This substantial collaboration affords us an opportunity to rapidly accelerate Forma’s innovations to clinical proof of relevance within our capital-efficient business structure, says Rob Sarisky, chief business officer of Forma.”
Forma Therapeutics has entered into a second strategic collaboration with Celgene focused on unmet needs in genetically driven therapeutic areas. The deal comes with $225 million in upfront cash and an option to be acquired by Celgene at a specified point during the partnership.
“Progress in our existing collaboration, coupled with emerging evidence of the power of Forma’s platform to generate unique chemical matter across important emerging target families, leads us to expand the collaboration and enable a unique collaborative relationship—one that complements the significant strengths of our internal discovery and development organization,” says Thomas Daniel, head of global research and early development at Celgene.
Under the new 3.5-year collaboration, Forma will use its technology across broad areas of chemistry and biology. Celgene has the option to enter into up to two additional collaborations of two years each for additional payments totaling about $375 million.
If Celgene elects to enter all the collaborations and they are successful, Celgene will have an exclusive option to acquire Forma during the third collaboration, including U.S. rights to all licensed programs and global rights to other wholly owned programs within the Watertown-based biotech at that time.
“This substantial collaboration affords us an opportunity to rapidly accelerate Forma’s innovations to clinical proof of relevance within our capital-efficient business structure,” says Rob Sarisky, chief business officer of Forma.
Forma’s first deal with Celgene, struck in April 2013, focuses on discovering and developing drug candidates that regulate protein homeostasis targets.
The broad scope and potential duration of Forma’s collaboration with Celgene will allow both parties to comprehensively evaluate emerging target families using Forma’s drug discovery platform, which drives screening and structure-based approaches across broad families of targets involved in tumor metabolism, epigenetics, protein homeostasis and protein-protein interactions.
As part of their deal, Celgene has an option to license the rights to select current and future Forma programs in exchange for undisclosed additional development and regulatory milestone payments. Celgene will assume responsibility for all global development activities and costs after completion of early-stage clinical trials. Forma retains U.S. rights to all such licensed assets, including responsibility for manufacturing and commercialization. For products not licensed to Celgene, Forma will maintain worldwide rights.
“Independent from the previously signed partnership with Celgene whereby they secured ex-U.S. rights to a defined set of protein homeostasis targets, this second agreement expands across Forma’s preclinical and future clinical development efforts, encompassing numerous protein target families and covering a broad range of therapeutic areas,” says Steven Tregay, president and CEO of Forma. “Importantly, this new alliance enables Forma to maintain autonomy in defining our research strategy and conducting discovery through early clinical development of our product portfolio. It aligns our company with Celgene’s global leadership in hematology and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and a shared strategic directive to transform healthcare.”
Forma has used partnership money to advance its technology and pipeline, having raised just $33 million in venture financing. Besides Celgene, it has relationships with Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Eisai, and Janssen.
April 04, 2014
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-forma_therapeutics_and_celgene_form_600m_alliance.html
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