Biotechnology firm Enodia Therapeutics has announced a research collaboration and licensing agreement with pharma giant Pfizer to discover and develop small molecule inhibitors of Sec61, using Enodia’s proprietary platform.
Under the terms of the agreement, Enodia will perform discovery activities to screen, optimize, and develop Sec61 inhibitor candidates against multiple collaboration targets. Following the collaboration term, Pfizer will be responsible for all clinical, manufacturing, regulatory, and commercial activities. Furthermore, Enodia will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for future research, development, and sales milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on net sales, bringing the total potential value to more than $500 million.
Enodia develops novel small-molecule therapies for targeted protein degradation using its platform, which is designed to identify small molecules that enable selective Sec61 translocon modulation, a novel approach to inhibit disease-driving proteins when they are synthesized and before pathological effects occur. To date, the company has built a broad chemical space that spans multiple Sec61 inhibitor families and is supported by biological datasets including proteomics and cryo-EM data as well as tailored cell-line libraries.
“Enodia has built a broad platform that enables selective Sec61 translocon modulation, a novel approach to inhibit disease-driving proteins while preserving essential physiological functions,” said Yves Ribeill, PhD, Enodia’s CEO. “We look forward to collaborating with Pfizer, combining their deep expertise and clinical resources with our approach for precisely targeting pathological proteins to bring forth potential new medicines.”
Earlier this year, Enodia announced that it had purchased assets from Kezar Life Sciences’ Sec61-based discovery and development program. At the time, Enodia said that the acquisition helped advance its understanding of Sec61 selectivity mechanisms. The company also said that insights from Kezar’s programs would further strengthen Enodia’s core focus on Sec61-driven selectivity for targeted protein degradation. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Kezar received an initial upfront payment totaling $1 million, and was expected to receive future payments upon achievement of certain development, regulatory and commercialization milestones.