Daiichi Sankyo links with German academia for cancer research

Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo (TYO: 4568) has signed an agreement with Germany’s  Max Planck Innovation and the Lead Discovery Center providing Daiichi Sankyo with the option to receive the exclusive rights to a new lead compound for the treatment of cancer to be discovered and developed at the Lead Discovery Center.

This new partnership builds on biology insights in the field of transcriptional regulation from the work of Prof Matthias Geyer at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund and the Research Center caesar (Center of Advanced European Studies and Research) in Bonn, Germany. Combined with the Lead Discovery Center’s strong drug discovery expertise in the design of highly selective kinase inhibitors, Daiichi Sankyo, Max Planck researchers and the Lead Discovery Center will now closely cooperate to further optimize these novel compounds that target cancer cell transcription and proliferation.

Daiichi Sankyo together with the Max Planck Society, supported by the Max Planck Foundation, will jointly fund the respective drug discovery efforts at the Lead Discovery Center. Once the project has achieved proof-of-concept in relevant in vivo models, Daiichi Sankyo has the exclusive rights to license the program at pre-defined terms for subsequent preclinical and clinical development. The agreement includes an upfront payment as well as development and sales milestones plus royalties. The licensing revenues will be shared between Max Planck Society, the Lead Discovery Center and all contributing researchers and institutions.