AstraZeneca will pay $45 million up front and up to $2.1 billion in milestone and commercial payments to Pieris Pharmaceuticals for development and commercialization rights to Pieris’s inhaled anticalin therapies, Pieris said. In the near term, AstraZeneca will also provide $12.5 million for a Phase 1 trial of Pieris’s lead candidate PRS-060, which is expected to begin this year.
Pieris has the option to co-develop and co-commercialize PRS-060, as well as several additional inhaled anticalins, which are small engineered proteins that bind to sites on other proteins or molecules. PRS-060 is targeted against interleukin-4 receptor alpha (IL-4Ra) and is in development for the treatment of moderate to severe asthma.
AstraZeneca Executive VP Mene Pangalos commented, “At AstraZeneca, discovering and developing innovative new medicines to treat respiratory diseases is a key strategic priority. Our alliance with Pieris adds an important new modality to our respiratory portfolio and builds on our scientific expertise in inhaled formulation technologies. Pieris shares our passion for ground-breaking science and we look forward to working together to develop new, life-changing treatment options for patients.”
Pieris President and CEO Stephen Yoder said, “Our partnership with AstraZeneca accelerates the transformation of Pieris into a fully-integrated drug development and commercial organization, comprising two main pillars in immunology: respiratory diseases and immuno-oncology, each of which is now anchored by a major alliance. We recognize AstraZeneca’s unparalleled expertise in the development of inhaled drugs, which will maximize the potential of PRS-060 and other inhaled Anticalin molecules to become valuable assets for both companies.”
Pieris Senior VP and Chief Development Officer Louis Matis added, “AstraZeneca, a leading innovator in respiratory diseases with considerable expertise in the development of inhaled products, is the ideal partner to exploit the potential of our platform in respiratory diseases. Based on the limitations of many types of biologic molecules, direct delivery to the lungs via inhalation has been challenging to date for other classes of therapeutic proteins. Anticalin proteins have unique properties, not least of which is their size and stability, and show considerable promise for this route of delivery.”
Read the Pieris Pharmaceuticals press release.
