Amgen and Carmot Therapeutics, a Berkeley, California-headquartered biotechnology company, have entered into a multi-year drug discovery collaboration and licensing agreement.

As part of the agreement, Carmot will apply its proprietary lead-identification technology, Chemotype Evolution, to discover and advance drug leads intended for treating Parkinson’s disease and other selected disease areas. Carmot and Amgen plan to work together to select therapeutic targets and identify drug candidates while Amgen will be solely responsible for clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization activities of any resulting molecules. The agreement builds on the companies’ strategic collaborative relationship that began in 2014.

Under the agreement, Amgen can select multiple targets to pursue, and Carmot will receive an upfront payment and research support and is eligible to receive milestone payments based on achievement of preclinical, clinical, and commercialization milestones potentially worth more than $240 million. In addition, Carmot is eligible to receive royalties on the net sales of products resulting from the collaboration.

Source: Carmot Therapeutics