Amphista Therapeutics, a provider of next generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) approaches, delivered the first discovery milestone under its collaboration and license agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), triggering a payment for achieving the milestone.

The collaboration and license agreement announced in May 2022, included a $30 million upfront payment, the potential for up to $1.25 billion in performance-based milestone payments and payment for a limited expansion of the collaboration, as well as royalties on global sales of products.

Amphista is responsible for the discovery and development of small molecule protein degraders using Eclipsys, its next-generation TPD platform. BMS is granted a global exclusive license to the resulting degraders and will be responsible for further development and commercialization activities.

Nicola Thompson, CEO of Amphista, said, “We are absolutely delighted with the progress and success of our collaboration with BMS. Our ability to deliver our first milestone within the first year of our collaboration exemplifies the strength of our Eclipsys platform and our ambition to be a world-leading, next generation protein degradation company.”

Amphista’s next generation bifunctional molecules use a novel approach that makes use of a wider range of the body’s own innate protein degrading mechanisms than those used by most other TPD companies. According to the company, this approach offers the potential to overcome many of the limitations seen with current TPD approaches, providing the opportunity to treat a wider range of diseases. Amphista is focused on biological targets with a high level of clinical or genetic validation.