Cytopia Limited today announced that it has entered into an anti-cancer drug discovery and development collaboration with Cancer Therapeutics CRC Pty Ltd. This agreement leverages Cytopia's early stage drug discovery pipeline of kinase inhibitors, a class of targeted therapeutics that is one of the fastest growing segments of the cancer drug market.
Cytopia will retain an option over exclusive commercialization rights for any drug candidates delivered by the collaboration. Should Cytopia choose not to exercise this option, Cancer Therapeutics may proceed with commercialization activities. In the event that all milestones to registration are successfully achieved, both Cancer Therapeutics and Cytopia will share in any partnering revenues, as well as royalty payments from a marketed drug.
Andrew Macdonald, CEO of Cytopia said, "Cytopia's drug discovery engine has generated many opportunities for novel cancer therapies and this innovative partnership gives us the freedom to focus investment on our later stage pipeline while still allowing our very early pipeline to move forward."
"Most importantly, the agreement leaves us with an option to capture the value upside for our investors if a new cancer drug is taken to market."
Under the terms of the collaboration, Cytopia has out-licensed specific proprietary technology to Cancer Therapeutics for an undisclosed kinase enzyme target with potential for treating metastatic cancers. Development of an inhibitor of this particular kinase could have blockbuster potential in the cancer market. Under the project plan.