Japanese Pharma, Takeda, currently refocusing its R&D efforts on oncology, gastroenterology and central nervous system after overhaul announced last July has now penned a multiyear R&D deal with in silico drug discovery expert Schrödinger.
The collaboration will witness the utilization of Schrödinger’s computer-powered drug discovery capabilities to try to identify small-molecule drug candidates within Takeda’s therapeutic areas of interest. And according to the terms of the deal, Takeda has the option to exclusively license the programs from Schrödinger after the early drug discovery phase, by paying milestones of up to $170 million per project, as well as royalties on future sales.
“We’ve established a workflow where we perform high-throughput virtual screening for hits, followed by increasingly more rigorous methods to optimize the lead compound,” Shi-Yi Liu, Schrödinger’s SVP said.
Schrödinger will, for the most part, be on its own—responsible for the discovery and ensuing costs—but Takeda will play a supporting role, providing protein crystal structures from its in-house team to aide the design of new chemical entities, Takeda’s head of research Stephen Hitchcock, Ph.D., said in a statement.
This collaboration marks Schrödinger’s first cross over with Takeda, although it is not the first time the two have crossed paths.
Now, by directly
working with Schrödinger, Takeda is offloading some of the R&D heavy lifting to a company with state-of-the-art computational chemistry platform. This follows the pharma’s earlier effort to transfer its U.S. and European clinical development and post-approval needs, along with the staff doing the work, to North Carolina-based CRO PRA Health Sciences.
