New England life sciences companies collaborate to tackle rare diseases
Recently, an abundance of New England life science companies, including New England Council members Vertex and Novartis, have announced partnerships, expansion projects, and fundraising in the fight against rare diseases.
Last week, Vertex Pharmaceutics announced a new collaboration with longtime partner CRISPR Therapeutics Inc. in the fight against Type 1 Diabetes. With this collaboration, Vertex will be paying CRISPR $100 million upfront, with up to $230 million in milestone payments, to use its gene-editing tech to engineer new treatments for this disease. Furthermore, Novartis AG has announced a collaboration with Bicycle Therapeutics Inc., a biotech headquartered in Cambridge, U.K., in a deal that will research and develop multiple drugs to treat cancer.
Novartis will be paying Bicycle $50 million upfront, plus up to $1.7 billion in milestone payments, to work with their signature synthetic bicyclic peptides, which are designed to be more stable and hit targets “not easily reached” by existing cancer drugs.
The New England Council commends both Vertex and Novartis for their commitment to the fight against rare diseases.
Read more from the Boston Business Journal.