Biotech, deals, Novartis

Ascent Inks Deal With Novartis For Pepducin Drugs

Luke Timmerman 12/8/08

Ascent Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based biotech startup, said today it has signed a deal with Novartis that gives the larger company the right to co-develop a new class of therapies called “pepducins.” The deal is worth as much as $200 million to Ascent in the form of an upfront fee and milestone payments based on success in further development. Ascent didn’t disclose the size of the upfront fee, or the percentage of royalties it stands to gain if any of the drug candidates become marketed products. Ryan described this technology in depth last month.

Luke Timmerman is the National Biotechnology Editor for Xconomy. You can e-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com, call 206-624-2374, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ldtimmerman.