Molecular Announces License Deal With Novartis For At Least Up To $580 Mln

(RTTNews) - Molecular Partners AG (MOLN), a company focused on a new class of custom-built protein drugs- DARPin therapeutics, said on Tuesday that it has entered into a license agreement with Novartis AG (NVS), to make and sell DARPin-conjugated radioligand therapies or DARPin-RLTs.

According to the license agreement, Novartis will pay $20 million upfront to Molecular Partners. The total deal amount also includes milestone payment of up to $560 million, and up to low double-digit percent of royalties.

Novartis will be responsible for all clinical development and commercialization activities.

The collaboration will allow Molecular Partners to team up with Novartis to discover DARPin-RLTs that target specific tumor associated antigens.

"DARPins have great potential to enable robust, tumor-specific delivery of radioligands owing to their small size, allowing for greater tumor penetration, and high specificity and affinity," the Zürich-headquartered Molecular Partners said in a statement.