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.
Author: Luke Timmerman
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
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