Phylogica Ltd, a public Australian drug discovery company, announced that it has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with Pfizer to discover novel peptide-based vaccines. Phylogica will employ its proprietary Phylomer drug discovery platform to identify Phylomer peptides suitable for further evaluation.

Under the agreement, Phylogica grants Pfizer certain rights, including an option to license any resulting Phylomers for further research, development and commercialisation of novel peptide-based vaccines derived from such Phylomers.

Under the terms of the agreement, Phylogica will receive an upfront payment of US$500,000. In addition, Phylogica is eligible to receive a commercial license payment and is also eligible to receive preclinical, clinical and other milestone payments of up to US$134 million, as well as royalties on worldwide sales.

Phylomer peptides are derived from biodiverse natural sequences, which have been selected by evolution to form stable structures, which can bind tightly, and specifically to disease associated target proteins, both inside and outside cells. Suitable targets for blockade by Phylomers include protein interactions that promote multiple diseases, such as infectious diseases, cancer, autoimmunity, and heart disease. Phylomer peptides can have drug-like properties, including specificity, potency and thermal stability, and are capable of being produced by synthetic or recombinant manufacturing processes. Phylomer peptides are also readily formulated for administration by a number of means, including parenteral or intranasal delivery approaches.

Dr Paul Watt, the founder and CEO of Phylogica said: "We are delighted to be working with Pfizer. This alliance supports the potential utility of Phylogica's Phylomer drug discovery platform for peptide-based drug discovery. With the present announcement, Phylogica has now entered into three alliances with global pharmaceutical companies within the last 12 months."

Phylogica Limited is biotechnology company based in Perth, Australia and Oxford UK, with a world-class drug discovery platform harnessing the rich biodiversity of nature to discover novel peptide therapeutics.