Daiichi Sankyo and Pieris reach new project milestone

Daiichi Sankyo and Pieris have announced the accomplishment of the latest goal in their collaborative research into Anticalin therapeutics.

Pieris has achieved the second milestone for the first of two programmes in the discovery and development collaboration, based on successful in vitro and in vivo studies validating a range of Anticalin targeted protein drug candidates designed to bind a Daiichi Sankyo target.

As a result, Pieris has been granted an undisclosed fee and will now hand over further development responsibility of the programme to Daiichi Sankyo.

Anticalins are therapeutic proteins derived from human lipocalins that have been engineered with the specific purpose of solving the pharmacological and pharmaceutical limitations of both protein and non-protein-based drug platforms.

Stephen Yoder, chief executive officer of Pieris, said: "Pieris has rapidly delivered these compounds and we remain on track for the generation of several Anticalin drug candidates for the second Daiichi Sankyo programme."

This comes after Daiichi Sankyo and ArQule began a new phase III clinical trial assessing the benefits of an innovative new cancer therapy earlier this year.