UPMC startup inks deal with drug discovery goals
CEO: ‘Undruggable’ diseases will be focus
A drug discovery startup formed by UPMC Enterprises has signed a licensing agreement with a Massachusetts biotech to develop small molecule treatments for diseases that have few other therapies.
Generian Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has offices on the South Side and in Boston, and Cambridgebased Mitobridge Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas Pharma Inc., inked the agreement, giving Astellas oversight of clinical development, manufacture and commercialization of products created through the joint venture.
In the deal, Generian will receive an unspecified upfront payment as well as eligibility for success milestones that could result in payments exceeding $180 million plus single-digit royalties on net product sales.
“We are excited to collaborate with Astellas and believe our strategy can successfully mine for candidate drugs for therapeutically relevant targets that are currently considered undruggable,” Generian CEO Hank Safferstein said in a prepared release. “Our small molecule discovery approach allows us to rapidly screen and identify potential drug candidates in an entirely new way in order to develop first in class medicines.”
In addition to Generian CEO, Mr. Safferstein is executive-in-residence at UPMC Enterprises. He was previously the founding CEO of Purchase, N.Y.-based Cognition Therapeutics Inc., which has research facilities on the South Side, and Complexa Inc. of Berwyn, Pa. He is also a director at Ariel Precision Medicine in East Liberty and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
In 2019, privately held Generian was formed by UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization and venture capital arm of Pittsburgh-based hospital health system giant UPMC. The company focuses on developing small molecule therapies to modulate protein stability.
Astellas acquired Mitobridge in 2018, and the company focuses on mitochondrial biology and such diseases as acute kidney injury and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.