SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Light Horse Therapeutics Inc., a developer of first-in-class small molecule therapeutics, announced a multi-target collaboration with Novartis to identify and develop potentially first-in-class therapeutics using the biotech’s platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Light Horse will receive a $25 million upfront payment. The company is also eligible for $1 billion in further research, development and sales milestones, in addition to royalties on licensed therapeutics. Further details are undisclosed.
“Light Horse’s high-caliber team has built a cutting-edge discovery platform that rapidly enables the exploration of core biological areas of interest, the identification of novel targets and the functionalization of high-value targets,” said John Tallarico, Head of Discovery Sciences at Novartis. “This collaboration has the potential to create first-in-class therapeutics capable of driving meaningful benefit for patients.”
“The Novartis collaboration presents an extraordinary opportunity to leverage our unbiased genetic screening platform and proprietary chemical libraries to address novel, high-value targets previously considered hard to drug,” said Light Horse CEO Markus Renschler, MD. “We are excited to work with the Novartis team to potentially accelerate the development of innovative cancer treatments over the coming years.”
About Light Horse Therapeutics
Light Horse Therapeutics emerged from the Inception Incubator with a $62M Series A financing led by founding investor Versant Ventures and included Mubadala Capital as well as three strategic investors. Light Horse is leading the way in precision genome editing applied to small molecule drug discovery, pioneering approaches to target the root causes of disabling and life-threatening diseases. Its advanced platform identifies cryptic chemically accessible functional domains within targets that play critical roles in disease biology. The high-throughput discovery platform systematically interrogates complex signaling pathways in their native, cellular context to uncover unique sites of vulnerability. The initial focus addresses high-value, historically challenging oncology targets with the opportunity to apply the technology to other therapeutic areas in the future. www.lighthorsetx.com.
