Novartis and Enzyme Therapeutics agree drug development alliance

Novartis has entered into a new collaboration with Ensemble Therapeutics on the development of new therapies for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

The strategic development agreement will accelerate Ensemble’s most advanced proprietary programme, which targets the inflammatory cytokine IL-17, and will also cover the discovery of novel small molecule treatments against undisclosed drug targets using Ensemble’s proprietary drug discovery platforms.

Ensemble will receive an undisclosed upfront payment from Novartis and tiered royalties based on the potential future sales of products, as well as research funding during the collaboration.

The class of IL-17 antagonists licensed by Novartis could represent potential first-in-class, orally active, small molecule inhibitors of this important clinically-validated target.

Ensemble’s chief executive officer Michael Taylor said: “We believe Novartis is the best-suited pharmaceutical company to partner with us to rapidly develop and market important new medicines for the treatment of IL-17-mediated disease.”

Last week, Novartis received a recommendation from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use for approval of two important new therapies, Ultibro Breezhaler and Ilaris.