Carmot Therapeutics has entered into a multi-year drug discovery collaboration and licensing agreement with Amgen worth up to $240 million. Carmot will apply its proprietary lead-identification technology, Chemotype Evolution, to discover and advance novel drug leads intended for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other selected disease areas. Carmot and Amgen will work together to select therapeutic targets and identify drug candidates, while Amgen will be solely responsible for clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization activities of any resulting molecules. The agreement builds on the strategic collaborative relationship that began in 2014.

“Over the past few years, we have greatly expanded the capabilities of Chemotype Evolution to better address unmet chemical needs in drug discovery,” said Stig Hansen, chief executive officer, Carmot. “Our relationship with Amgen started in 2014 with our first discovery collaboration that was extended in 2016. We are delighted to announce a new and expanded collaboration with Amgen to discover drug candidates for challenging therapeutic targets. Working with Amgen, we will be able to more fully leverage the capabilities of Chemotype Evolution to identify novel drug candidates for the benefit of patients.”

John Dunlop, vice president, neuroscience research, Amgen, said, “Discovering new medicines to treat debilitating neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s is a key area of focus for our neuroscience research team. We’re excited to expand Amgen’s relationship with Carmot to leverage its unique small molecule capabilities to address targets that traditionally have been very difficult to drug.”

Amgen can select multiple targets to pursue and Carmot will receive an upfront payment and research support and is eligible to receive milestone payments based on achievement of pre-clinical, clinical, and commercialization milestones potentially worth more than $240 million. In addition, Carmot is eligible to receive royalties on the net sales of products resulting from the collaboration.