Incyte and Biotheryx collaborate to develop protein degraders for oncology targets

Incyte and Biotheryx have entered into a research collaboration and licensing agreement to discover and develop protein degraders for ‘historically undruggable’ oncology targets.

The partnership will see Biotheryx use its PRODEGY platform to identify and initially develop molecular glue degraders, which are designed to leverage the body’s natural recycling machinery to selectively eliminate disease-causing proteins.

Incyte will then be solely responsible for further development and commercialisation of any discovered candidates.

Biotheryx will receive $7m for the initial target plus up to an additional $6m in potential research and development funding for costs associated with the collaboration.

The company will also be eligible to receive potential future regulatory and commercial milestones of up to $347m plus tiered single-digit royalties on global net product sales.

The partners will have the option to expand the collaboration under the same financial terms.

Dashyant Dhanak, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of Incyte, said: "The Biotheryx team has significant expertise in targeted protein degradation, one of the most promising modalities in oncology, and we look forward to collaborating to develop therapies that can help improve patient lives."

Philippe Drouet, president and chief executive officer of Biotheryx, said: "Our PRODEGY platform is designed to increase efficiency in degrader discovery and design, enabling the development of therapies for previously undruggable targets.

“We look forward to leveraging this differentiated approach in our collaboration with Incyte and in the continued advancement of our pipeline of first-in-class, next generation bifunctional degraders and molecular glues for the treatment of cancers and inflammatory disease."

Merck & Co –  known as MSD outside the US and Canada – and Proxygen also announced a partnership to identify molecular glue degraders on the same day.

Under this collaboration, Proxygen will receive an upfront payment from Merck in exchange for using its platform technology to identify the molecules, and will be eligible for future payments of up to $2.55bn plus royalties.

“Advances in our understanding of molecular glue degraders are opening exciting new avenues in the pursuit of novel therapeutic mechanisms,” said Robert Garbaccio, vice president and head of discovery chemistry at Merck.