Policy & Regulation
Forge & Basilea partner to discover and develop novel antibiotics
25 April 2019 -

Medicine company Forge Therapeutics Inc said on Wednesday that it plans to discover, develop and commercialise novel antibiotic classes under a research collaboration and licence agreement with Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd (SIX:BSLN).

As part of the agreement, Basilea will apply Forge's proprietary BLACKSMITH platform to develop potent and selective inhibitors against two historically difficult-to-drug, unexploited antibiotic targets.

According to Forge, its BLACKSMITH comprises a deep knowledge of metalloenzymes, bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry know-how and a focused library of proprietary metal-binding fragment pharmacophores (MBPs) that provide selective and diverse starting points for novel inhibitors.

Basilea will make an upfront payment to Forge to access the BLACKSMITH platform for two targets. The targets to be explored by Forge and Basilea are well characterised metalloenzyme targets, which are vital for a variety of biological functions in bacteria.

In conjunction with the agreement, Forge is eligible to receive potential development and sales milestone payments of up to USD167m per target and tiered royalties upon commercialisation of each antibiotic stemming from the collaboration.

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