Epizyme Earns $10 Million Payment from GSK for GLP Toxicology Studies

Epizyme announced it earned a $10 million milestone payment from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The milestone payment follows GSK’s initiation of GLP toxicology studies for a methyltransferase inhibitor discovered by Epizyme and licensed to GSK.

"We are pleased to achieve another milestone under our collaboration with GSK, further validating the strength of our epigenetic approach and drug discovery platform, as well our success in collaborating with industry leaders like GSK," Susan Graf, Chief Business Officer of Epizyme said. "We are encouraged that this investigational medicine continues to advance toward the clinic."

Under the terms of its collaboration and license agreement with GSK, Epizyme granted GSK exclusive worldwide license rights to methyltransferase inhibitors directed to three targets. During the research term of the collaboration, which is now complete, Epizyme was primarily responsible for preclinical research, and now GSK is responsible for subsequent research, development and commercialization of the three programs. Using its drug discovery platform, Epizyme discovered and optimized compounds targeting three methyltransferases. GSK3326595, a first-in-class PRMT5 inhibitor, was the first of these to enter the clinic in September 2016. GSK holds worldwide rights to all three programs. Epizyme has earned $69 million in up-front, research, and milestone payments to date, and may receive up to an additional $607 million from GSK if all milestones are met for all three programs. Epizyme is eligible to receive up to double-digit royalties on worldwide net sales of collaboration products.

Epizyme is developing its lead product candidate, tazemetostat, an EZH2 inhibitor, with studies underway in both solid tumors and hematological malignancies as a monotherapy and combination therapy and in relapsed and front-line disease.