Biopharmaceutical company Prometheus Biosciences is collaborating with pharmaceutical firm Takeda to discover, develop, and commercialize a new generation of targeted therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The global, multi-target strategic collaboration will combine Prometheus’s proprietary bioformatics discovery platform and diagnostic tools with Takeda’s gastroenterology and drug development expertise in an effort to discover and advance up to three targeted IBD treatments and companion diagnostic tools.
The agreement calls for Takeda to make an initial payment to Prometheus of an undisclosed amount. Prometheus also may receive up to $420 million in development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments across the three programs. That would be in addition to royalty payments on each program’s international sales.
The charge for Prometheus is to identify and validate the unique IBD therapy targets, and take on the development and commercialization of complementary diagnostics. For its part, Takeda will handle treatment discovery, clinical development, and all commercialization activities.
“We are impressed with Takeda’s commitment to developing a portfolio of therapies to address all IBD patients, especially those with unmet needs,” said Mark McKenna, Prometheus CEO, in a press release.
“We believe that a targeted, precision medicine approach is needed to deliver new, effective therapies in inflammatory bowel disease. Through our partnership, we are excited to combine the Prometheus bioinformatics platform and advanced machine learning techniques with Takeda’s expertise in drug development to deliver a new generation of IBD therapies.”
In addition to associated clinical and research data, Prometheus has a repository of 200,000 samples from some 20,000 IBD patients, which it uses to identify subgroups of people with these diseases and develop applicable therapies. The company also develops diagnostics.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals (part of Takeda) is the producer of Entyvio (vedolizumab) for the treatment of moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease — the two most common forms of IBD.
In related news, Takeda recently announced that, following a year-long head-to-head comparison of the anti-inflammatory treatments, Entyvio was found to be more effective than Humira (adalimumab) in achieving disease remission in individuals with UC.
According to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, inflammatory bowel diseases affect as many as 1.6 million U.S. residents, most of whom are diagnosed before age 35. As many as 70,000 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. annually.