Another expanded collaboration for X-Chem

Privately-held US biotech X-Chem today announced a significant expansion of its existing global drug discovery collaboration with AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN).

The new agreement focuses on the synthesis and delivery of custom libraries to AstraZeneca as well as the transfer of the DEX platform, allowing for in-house screening of DNA-encoded libraries at AstraZeneca. It is the third agreement between AstraZeneca and X-Chem since 2012 and builds on the success of the parties’ existing collaboration, which has resulted in numerous licenses to novel small molecules across multiple discovery programs and therapeutic indications to date.

Each X-Chem program licensed by AstraZeneca is eligible for pre-clinical, clinical and sales milestones in the aggregate amount of up to $26 million.