Good news from Freising: The biotechnology company Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH — a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich in 2001 — has closed a billion-euro deal with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. As an upfront payment, the Freising-based company will receive IZB The company, based in the United States, is investing approximately $58 million. Additional milestone payments could potentially increase this total to over $2 billion.
Until then, the new partners want to use the Anticalin platform from Pieris to evaluate their suitability for developing inhalable drugs for a range of indications. Part of the agreement is Pieris' preclinical lead drug candidate PRS-060 for asthma, an anticalin targeting the interleukin-4 receptor alpha. A Phase I trial is scheduled to begin in 2017, and four other anticalins are also being investigated in the area of lung diseases. Anticalins are antibody-like, but much smaller, protein molecules with specific binding properties.
Maximizing potential together
Loud Stephen Yoder, President and CEO of Pieris, the partnership with AstraZeneca accelerates Pieris' transformation into a fully integrated drug development company with two main areas of immunotherapy: respiratory diseases and immuno-oncology:
"We recognize AstraZeneca's unparalleled expertise in developing inhaled medicines. It will help maximize the potential of PRS-060 and other anticalin molecules."
Pieris recently attracted attention at the beginning of the year with a strategic partnership with SERVIER, France's largest pharmaceutical company. The company also has long-standing collaborations with pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi and Daiichi Sankyo. Through a reverse merger with a US company, Pieris achieved a US stock exchange listing in 2015, which was eventually converted into a NASDAQ listing. For this purpose, the company's nominal headquarters are located in Boston, USA. The larger R&D branch, currently with over 40 employees, remains active in Freising near Munich.
