Takeda and Degron Therapeutics ink licensing deal worth $1.2B

Privately-held Chinese developer of molecular glue degraders for cancer treatment Degron Therapeutics has entered into a collaboration and exclusive license agreement with Japan’s largest drugmaker Takeda Pharma (TYO: 4502).

Degron and Takeda will collaborate to utilize Degron’s GlueXplorer platform to identify, validate, and optimize molecular glue degraders for specific therapeutic targets selected by Takeda. Upon reaching a certain stage of advancement, the projects would be transitioned to Takeda for further development and commercialization.

“We are excited to collaborate with Takeda, expanding the use of our platform into new therapeutic areas,” said Lily Zou, co-founder and chief executive of Degron Therapeutics. “Degron’s differentiated and powerful GlueXplorer platform has been validated by its robust, first-in-class pipeline of novel molecular glue drugs for disease targets that are undruggable by other modalities or better addressed with this new modality. By partnering with Takeda, we combine our molecular glue discovery expertise with Takeda’s vast drug development and commercialization experience in hopes of offering patients worldwide a new class of treatments," she noted.