Company will develop inhibitors of protein-protein interactions.
Forma Therapeutics has agreed to develop inhibitors for an undisclosed protein-protein interaction target in the field of oncology for Novartis. The agreement includes an up-front fee and potential milestones totaling over $200 million as well as royalties.
“Protein-protein interactions represent important target opportunities in the field of oncology drug discovery but have been highly elusive to date,” according to Reinhard Ambros, head of the Novartis Venture Funds.
Forma states that it has a versatile cell-based screening platform that allows the screening of discrete targets in cells and quantitative genome/proteome-wide profiling and target identification. The company uses structure-guided drug discovery (SGDD) approaches along with computational and structural biology as well as an integrated chemistry platform that incorporates diversity orientated synthesis (DOS). DOS combines the high stereochemical and structural diversity found in natural products with traditional combinatorial chemistry techniques.
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