BRIEF—A-Alpha Bio collaborates with Amgen

A-Alpha Bio (A-Alpha), a US synthetic biology and machine learning company that measures and engineers protein-protein interactions, today announced the expansion of its collaboration with US biotech giant Amgen's Induced Proximity Platform to characterize interactions between ligases and molecular glue targets for protein degradation.

As part of a research collaboration initiated in 2022 with Amgen, A-Alpha discovered several weakly interacting ligase-target pairs between a list of Amgen's targets and A-Alpha's proprietary library of E3 ubiquitin ligases.

Following review of the results from the initial collaboration and additional work carried out by Amgen, the companies have agreed to an expanded collaboration.

Under the expanded collaboration agreement, A-Alpha will further interrogate selected pairs to evaluate glueability and provide structural insights expected to enable rational design of molecular glue degraders.

A-Alpha Bio will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and will be eligible for milestones and a royalty on product sales resulting from licensed ligase-target pairs.