FORMA Thera in up to $815 million deal with Boehringer

Fast-growing US drug discovery firm FORMA Therapeutics has entered into an R&D collaboration with family-owned German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim to discover and develop novel drug candidates for the treatment of cancer. The agreement will focus on discovering small molecule drugs against oncology-relevant protein-protein interactions.

Under the terms of the collaboration, FORMA will receive a total of $65 million in up-front payments and research funding to screen for and optimize compounds against multiple oncology targets over the next four years. FORMA could be eligible for up to $750 million in pre-commercial milestones for programs resulting from the collaboration. Further financial details were not disclosed.

“Many of the ‘un-druggable’ and/or novel targets in oncology involve protein-protein interactions,” said Kenneth Bair, senior vice president and head of R&D at FORMA, adding: “We are really excited about tackling these essential targets with Boehringer Ingelheim.”