AstraZeneca has formed a collaboration with Bicycle Therapeutics, a Cambridge, UK-headquartered biotechnology company specializing in therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide product platform in a deal worth more than $1 billion. The collaboration aims to identify and develop bicyclic peptides, or Bicycles, for treating respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Under the agreement, Bicycle Therapeutics is responsible for identifying bicyclic peptides for an undisclosed number of targets specified by AstraZeneca while AstraZeneca is responsible for further development and product commercialization. If all planned programs reach the market, Bicycle Therapeutics will be eligible for more than $1 billion in payments, including an upfront payment, future research and development funding, development, regulatory, and commercialization milestone payments. Bicycle Therapeutics would also be entitled to receive royalties on sales of products resulting from the collaboration.

Bicycles are a class of small-molecule bicyclic peptides that are designed to overcome the limitations of existing drug modalities. They exhibit the affinity and target specificity usually associated with antibodies but in a small-molecule format, according to Bicycle Therapeutics.

Source: Bicycle Therapeutics