Amgen selects German Disco Pharma to collaborate in multi-million-dollar deal
The new year at Cologne-based Disco Pharma has begun much as the old one ended: with a headline-grabbing announcement. Just weeks after closing a sizeable financing round, the company has now unveiled an equally notable collaboration with US biotech pioneer Amgen, a partnership with a potential value of up to US$618 million.
Shortly after completing a €36 million funding round, DISCO Pharmaceuticals GmbH has sent a further strategic signal by entering into an exclusive licence agreement with Amgen to develop novel cancer therapies targeting cell-surface structures. The collaboration is also likely to boost the company’s visibility on the international stage, not least in the context of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, currently bringing the global life sciences community together in San Francisco.
Under the agreement, Amgen will receive worldwide development and commercialisation rights to therapeutic programmes directed against a newly identified cancer target discovered using Disco Pharma’s proprietary surfaceome-mapping platform. For Disco, the deal carries a potential total value of up to US$618 million, plus royalties in the event of approval. As is often the case with such transactions, however, this figure represents a distant best-case scenario. The size of any upfront payment or near-term milestone payments, which would have a more immediate impact on Disco’s day-to-day operations, was not disclosed.
“This agreement demonstrates the potential of our surfaceome-mapping technology to identify clinically relevant targets on the surface of cancer cells,” said CEO Mark Manfredi. “Together with Amgen, we aim to translate these biological insights into innovative therapies and significantly accelerate development for patients.”
Disco Pharma was spun out of the University of Cologne and builds on the research of Roman Thomas, founder and former CEO. The company combines cell-surface proteomics with data-driven protein community analysis to unlock previously inaccessible targets and to evaluate newly discovered characteristics of specific cancer cell surfaces. Its internal pipeline is currently focused on programmes in small cell lung cancer and microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer.
US-based Amgen, meanwhile, has entered the new year at pace. Alongside the deal with Disco, the long-established Californian biotech company has recently attracted attention with the acquisition of DarkBlue Therapeutics in Oxford, UK. There, too, very early-stage science – targeted protein degradation – has moved into the focus of Amgen’s strategic interest.
