The future milestone-based royalties and other payouts from Merck in Rahway could reach $500 million — over a decade.
This is how platform-based, software-driven candidate discovery works.
Real scientists, with dozens of decades of experience in the so-called “dead ends and blind alleys“… narrow down a fairly short list of pitfall producing molecular structures… based on real world experiences. Then computational (big iron) software cranks through billions of potential candidates / compositional molecule choices, to studiously avoid the pitfalls, but still offer dozens of potentially viable molecules for additional virtual refining — and perhaps ultimately, in vitro testing.
Then and only then… in vivo. To do it right, it takes… years, not weeks. Here’s Fierce Biotech on it all:
…Cambridge, U.K.-based Astex will receive $35 million upfront with $500 million per program available down the line in milestones, plus royalties, to generate leads on new small-molecule modulators for a number of targets. Astex will use its fragment-based drug discovery platform to find new therapeutics that have activity toward the p53 tumor suppressor protein. The candidates will then be handed off to Merck for further optimization and preclinical development, according to a Tuesday press release.
There’s no cap on the number of targets the companies will turn up through the collaboration. Merck will assume responsibility for future research and development as well as commercialization of any candidates it picks….
Indeed. While the idea of super cheap “drug discovery” sounds promising… without lots of real world, human scientist-informed guidance, Martin’s idea was always a bit like expecting a lab full of 100 or so monkeys (with typewriters) to deliver the full, word for word transcript of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” — in a single throw.
Now you know.
Out, smiling….
