Novartis enters agreement with Forma

Novartis’ Option Fund has entered a licence and option agreement with Forma.

The deal includes an upfront fee, along with milestones that could potentially reach over $200 million (136.78 million pounds), along with royalties.

Under the terms of the agreement, Forma will adapt its chemistry and transformative biology platform in order to develop inhibitors, as part of an oncology-based protein to protein interaction target.

Reinhard Ambros, head of Novartis Venture Funds, said the company was “very excited” to be in the agreement.

He added: “Protein-protein interactions represent important target opportunities in the field of oncology drug discovery, but have been highly elusive to date.”

Forma’s chief executive officer Steven Tregay noted the deal will “accelerate the advancement of oncology programs into clinical development”.

He went on to add it will provide “important validation” for the company’s “unique approach to drug discovery for challenging targets”.

Last month, Novartis said it had reached an exclusive agreement with AlphaVax to license the company’s investigational Cytomegalovirus vaccine programme.

The treatment is used for the prevention of fatal diseases, including hospital and community-acquired infections and meningococcal viruses.

Based in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis operates in 140 countries and employs almost 100,000 people.