Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories said that its fully-owned subsidiary Aurigene Discovery Technologies has signed an exclusive global collaboration and license agreement worth up to $438 million with US-based Olema Pharmaceuticals to discover and develop novel cancer therapies.

Olema Pharmaceuticals and Aurigene Discovery Technologies will develop novel small molecule inhibitors of an undisclosed oncology target.

Under the terms of the deal, Olema Pharmaceuticals will make an upfront licensing payment of $8 million to gain rights to a pre-existing program of the Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories subsidiary.

Aurigene Discovery Technologies will be entitled to be paid up to $60 million in potential milestones related to clinical development and regulatory events. The Bengaluru and Kuala Lumpur-based clinical stage biotech company also stands to receive up to $370 million in potential commercial milestones along with royalties based on annual net sales, ranging from the mid-single digits to the low double digits.

Sean P. Bohen — Olema Oncology president and CEO said: “We continue to have confidence in OP-1250 and its potential to become the endocrine therapy of choice for ER+ / HER2- breast cancer, and believe this collaboration will give us an opportunity to expand our focus on new treatments for cancer in women.

“Aurigene has an impressive history of successful collaborations and combined with Olema’s deep understanding of cancer biology and extensive development expertise, we believe this is a strong strategic opportunity to enhance our growing discovery portfolio.”

During the research part of the collaboration, Olema Pharmaceuticals will contribute funding to Aurigene Discovery Technologies to enable ongoing efforts in discovery. The two parties will jointly direct additional preclinical work and, if successful, the US firm will lead clinical development and regulatory and commercial activities as well.

Murali Ramachandra — Aurigene Discovery Technologies CEO said: “This agreement with Olema further validates Aurigene’s proven expertise in discovery and preclinical development of effective cancer therapeutics.

“We look forward to the continued development of an Aurigene program, which will now be ably supported by the extensive development capability of Olema.”

  Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, India, Murali Ramachandra, Olema Oncology, Oncology, OP-1250, Sean P. Bohen, USA