Prosetta Antiviral has entered into a multi-year collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to further discover and develop select drug candidates representing new, novel classes of antiviral drugs.
The collaboration will focus on the discovery and advancement of compounds shown to block viral capsid assembly using Prosetta's proprietary drug discovery platform.
Under the agreement, Bristol-Myers will have the right to develop and commercialize products arising from the research program.
Prosetta will earn an upfront payment and multi-year research funding and is even eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties based on worldwide sales of the drugs emerging from the collaboration.
Prosetta chief technology officer and Co-CEO Vishwanath Lingappa said, "We greatly value this opportunity to collaborate with Bristol-Myers Squibb scientists in a joint program dedicated to a completely new approach to protecting human health against viral infections."
Prosetta currently has a portfolio comprising novel chemical classes of small molecules with antiviral activity which target catalytic host protein interactions essential for the virus, but not the host, which represent a new therapeutic approach for antiviral agents.