4SC Discovery and BioNTech enter cancer therapy research partnership

German drug discovery firm 4SC AG (VSC: DE) says that its wholly-owned research subsidiary 4SC Discovery GmbH has entered into an extensive research partnership in the field of cancer medicines with fellow Germany-based biopharmaceutical company BioNTech AG.

In this service partnership, which has commenced at the beginning of the year and will run for three years, 4SC Discovery will be commissioned by BioNTech to identify new small molecule anti-cancer drugs for defined therapeutic targets and optimize these for BioNTech. BioNTech is planning to conduct preclinical testing and, if successful, bring the compounds to the clinical development stage.

As part of this collaboration, the two partners are already working on four cancer therapy projects at various stages of early-phase pharmaceutical research. Under the partnership, BioNTech will pay 4SC Discovery a cost-based service fee as well as success-based payments on achievement of specific development or sales milestones plus royalties linked to future net sales of the products. Further financial terms were not disclosed.