Ely Lilly, Deciphera tie up for cancer drug research

Mumbai: Eli Lilly and Company has entered into a licensing agreement with and privately-held Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, LLC for the latter's pre-clinical study of its potential oncology therapeutics programme B-Raf kinase inhibitor.

Ely Lily will apply Deciphera's phylomechanics discovery platform to kinase inhibitor design leveraging Lilly's expertise in discovery, development and commercialisation of drug candidates for a variety of cancers.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly and Deciphera will collaborate in four different project areas involving selective or multi-kinase targeted B-Raf inhibitors.

Lilly will obtain exclusive worldwide rights to any products developed as part of this collaboration. In return, Deciphera will receive an upfront payment and research funding over the next two years from Lilly, and may also receive up to $130 million in potential development, regulatory and sales milestones for each of the four project areas. Deciphera will be entitled to royalties on sales of products commercialised from this collaboration.

''This collaboration is further evidence of Lilly's ongoing commitment to oncology research,'' said Dr William W Chin, vice president of discovery research and clinical investigation for Lilly. ''We look forward to working with Deciphera to leverage their B-Raf kinase inhibitor programme, with the ultimate goal of developing promising drug candidates for cancer patients,'' he added.

B-Raf kinase is one of the most frequently mutated members of the kinase family across all cancers, and is particularly common in malignant melanomas, colon, and thyroid cancers. The V600E mutant form of BRAF kinase in particular has been associated with increased tumor aggressiveness and decreased survival rates in many types of cancers.

Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, LLC, established in 2003, is engaged in drug discovery and development. Deciphera's kinase inhibitors target the mechanisms that render kinases oncogenic, retain potency against gatekeeper mutations, and afford selectivity profiles not easily attained by other approaches.

Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, is a research-based pharmaceutical company with worldwide research collaboration.