Lexicon and Takeda in hypertension agreement

Lexicon Genetics and Takeda are to develop new drugs for the treatment of high blood pressure.

The alliance is designed to accelerate the development and commercialisation of new drugs directed against promising hypertension targets discovered in Lexicon's Genome5000 program.

In the collaboration, Takeda will have exclusive access to all drug targets from Lexicon's Genome5000 program that control blood pressure. In this program, Lexicon is using its proprietary gene knockout technology to rapidly discover the functions of 5,000 of the most pharmaceutically important genes in the human genome. Takeda will be responsible for the screening, medicinal chemistry, preclinical and clinical development and commercialisation of drugs directed against Lexicon's novel blood pressure targets, and will bear all related costs.

Lexicon will receive an upfront payment of $12m from Takeda for the initial, three-year term of the agreement. Takeda has the option to extend the discovery portion of the alliance for an additional two years in exchange for further committed funding. Takeda will make research milestone payments to Lexicon for each target selected for therapeutic development. In addition, Takeda will make clinical development and product launch milestone payments to Lexicon for each product commercialised from the collaboration. Lexicon will also earn royalties on worldwide sales of drugs commercialised by Takeda.