Nuevolution and Novartis in new research collaboration

Danish lead discovery company Nuevolution has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Novartis. Nuevolution will apply its proprietary Chemetics drug discovery technology to identify novel small molecule leads against drug targets of interest to Novartis.

The Chemetics platform uses innovative DNA labeling to allow fragment-based drug screening at an unprecedented scale. Nuevolution will screen its multi-million member diverse fragment-based screening libraries for hit identification. Through the design, synthesis and screening of target focused Chemetics follow-up libraries, the parties will also work together to perform hit-to-lead optimisation.

Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis will provide Nuevolution with an upfront payment, research funding, and milestone payments as candidate molecules progress through preclinical and clinical development and onto the market. In addition, Nuevolution is eligible to receive royalties on the commercial sales of approved products. Further financial details were not disclosed.

"We look forward to an exciting and fruitful outcome of the collaboration," said Alex Gouliaev, ceo of Nuevolution.