Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc. (FivePrime), a leader in the discovery and development of innovative biologics, has entered into its second strategic drug discovery alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) within two years. This new collaboration gives GSK exclusive access to FivePrime’s drug discovery platforms in up to six programs to identify first-in-class agents and new mechanisms relevant to refractory asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Under the terms of the agreement, GSK will receive access to FivePrime’s comprehensive, proprietary collection of functional human secreted proteins and transmembrane receptor proteins and FivePrime will apply its technology platforms to identify and validate potential drug targets and drug candidates. GSK has an option to exclusively license selected targets discovered by FivePrime in the collaboration. For a majority of licensed targets, GSK would take on sole responsibility for additional preclinical studies, clinical development, manufacturing and worldwide commercialization of products. For a limited number of GSK-licensed targets, FivePrime would have the opportunity to advance biologic products through human proof-of-mechanism clinical studies, after which GSK would have an exclusive option to exclusively license global rights for such products in exchange for enhanced financial payments to FivePrime.

FivePrime would be eligible to receive up to $30 million over the next four years from an upfront fee, the purchase of FivePrime equity by GSK, research funding, and option payments related to the research program. In addition, in the event that GSK licenses a candidate after FivePrime has developed such candidate through the proof-of-mechanism stage, FivePrime would be eligible for up to $193.5 million in potential option exercise fees and milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales for each product resulting from a selected drug target.

“We are delighted to form this second strategic alliance with GSK to find first-in-class drugs and drug targets for treatment-refractory respiratory diseases, which is a core area for FivePrime. GSK is a leader in the research and development of respiratory products and brings tremendous expertise to the collaboration. Our existing GSK alliance to discover products for skeletal muscle disorders, which was recently expanded last year, is making great progress, so we are extremely pleased to enter into this additional collaboration.” said Lewis T. “Rusty” Williams, MD, PhD, Founder, President and CEO of FivePrime.