Gilead punts $66 million on drug discovery deal with Tentarix

US biotech major Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) has entered into three, multi-year, collaborations with San Diego-based start-up Tentarix Biotherapeutics, aiming to leverage the latter’s proprietary Tentacles platform to discover and develop multi-functional, conditional protein therapeutics for oncology and inflammatory diseases.

Designed to enhance both therapeutic benefit and safety, these molecules have the potential to conditionally target immune cells related to disease pathways without activating other immune cells that may create adverse events.

Across the three collaborations, Tentarix will receive upfront payments and an equity investment from Gilead totaling $66 million. In addition, Gilead has the option to acquire up to three select Tentarix subsidiaries containing the programs developed under the collaborations for $80 million per subsidiary.