MKKGY Merck KGaA (PK)

By Dean Seal

The Austrian biotechnology company Proxygen GmbH has entered into a strategic partnership with Merck KGaA to develop molecular glue degraders, a class of molecules that degrade disease-causing proteins that can't be blocked by traditional pharmacology.

Founded in 2020, Proxygen said it was teaming up with the German science and technology company to identify and develop molecular glue degraders up to a clinical candidate stage.

Molecular glue degraders could be the key to delivering innovative therapies for diseases with a high medical need, but their clinical potential hasn't yet been exploited due to a scarcity of scalable discovery strategies, Proxygen said.

Under the terms of their multi-year research collaboration and license agreement, Proxygen is eligible to receive up to $554 million in continuous R&D funding, royalty payments and payments for hitting upfront and success-based milestones.

"We are incredibly excited to start this long-term collaboration with Merck, a globally recognized player in the pharmaceutical industry that shares our drive towards dynamic innovation for the benefit of patients," Dr. Bernd Boidol, Proxygen's chief executive, said in a statement. "The partnership validates the unique potential of Proxygen's glue degrader platform and strategically leverages our common strengths in the targeted protein degradation field."

Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 02, 2022 12:23 ET (16:23 GMT)

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