Codexis and Pfizer in broad technology collaboration
US biosciences company Codexis has signed a multi-year, non-exclusive collaboration focused on process r&d for pharmaceutical life cycle management of some of Pfizer's small molecule human therapeutic products.
US biosciences company Codexis has signed a multi-year, non-exclusive collaboration focused on process r&d for pharmaceutical life cycle management of some of Pfizer's small molecule human therapeutic products.
In addition to the collaboration, Pfizer will make an equity investment of US$10m in Codexis.
Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer will have the option to acquire a non-exclusive license to certain Codexis' MolecularBreeding technologies for in-house application to its pipeline. Codexis will receive a license fee upon exercise of this option by Pfizer.
The multi-year agreement includes up-front payments, technology access fees and milestone payments to Codexis that could total up to $40m over the term of the research agreement. The collaboration involves multiple projects per year, with each product generating additional milestone payments upon US regulatory clearance, as well as ongoing commercial payments on sales. If successful, the collaboration could generate substantial additional milestone and commercial payments.
Codexis applies proprietary protein and strain en-gineering technologies to create novel process development solutions for efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly pharmaceutical manufacturing. The company has 10 strategic alliances, including a prior agreement with Pfizer, 15 products and processes in development internally and at leading worldwide life sciences companies and five processes now operating at commercial scale.