Merck and C4 Therapeutics Forge $2.5B Collaboration to Develop Degrader-Antibody Conjugates (DACs) for Oncology

▎Edited by the WuXi AppTec content team

C4 Therapeutics (C4T) announced today that it has signed an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with MSD to develop antibody conjugated protein degradation drugs (DACs), a type ofAn emerging therapeutic modality designed to selectively target and degrade disease-causing proteins in cancer cells.

Under the terms of the agreement, C4T will receive a $10 million upfront payment. C4T and MSD will collaborate to develop DACs targeting an undisclosed oncology target. For the initial target, C4T is eligible to receive up to approximately $600 million in milestone payments. The agreement also grants MSD the option to expand the collaboration to include three additional targets. If MSD exercises all its options for expanded collaboration, C4T is eligible to receive up to approximately $2.5 billion in potential payments throughout the entire collaboration.

As part of the collaboration, C4T will be responsible for developing the active components of protein degraders during the discovery phase using its proprietary TORPEDO platform. Merck will be responsible for antibody conjugation to construct DACs during the discovery phase and will drive these DAC candidates through preclinical and clinical development as well as commercialization.

Following the success of ADCs using cytotoxic drugs as payloads, the use of protein degradation drugs as ADC payloads is gaining increasing attention in the industry. In November this year, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced an agreement with Orum Therapeutics to acquire ORM-6151, a potential "first-in-class" antibody-conjugated protein degrader, for approximately $180 million. During an interview with the content team of WuXi AppTec,Dr. SJ Lee, CEO of Orum, said that combining protein degraders with antibodies can allow candidate drugs to target specific diseased cells, thereby enhancing efficacy and safety and overcoming the inherent challenges of small-molecule degraders.

[1] C4 Therapeutics Announces License and Research Collaboration with Merck to Discover and Develop Degrader-Antibody Conjugates (DACs) . Retrieved December 12, 2023, from https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/12/12/2794588/0/en/C4-Therapeutics-Announces-License-and-Research-Collaboration-with-Merck-to-Discover-and-Develop-Degrader-Antibody-Conjugates-DACs.html

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