Daiichi Sankyo, Max Planck and Lead Discovery form cancer research partnership

Daiichi Sankyo has signed a new agreement with Max Planck Innovation and Lead Discovery Center to form a new cancer research collaboration.

As part of the partnership, Daiichi Sankyo will receive exclusive rights to a new lead compound for the treatment of cancer to be discovered and developed at the Lead Discovery Center.

The collaboration is built on biology insights in the field of transcriptional regulation from the work of professor Matthias Geyer at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany, and the Research Center caesar (Center of Advanced European Studies and Research) in Bonn, Germany.

Together with the Lead Discovery Center’s strong drug discovery expertise in the design of highly selective kinase inhibitors, the researchers from the three organisations will cooperate to further optimise the development of new compounds that target cancer cell transcription and proliferation.

Daiichi Sankyo Oncology Research and Development executive vice-president and global head Dr Antoine Yver said: "It is a great pleasure for us to start this research collaboration with Max Planck Innovation and the Lead Discovery Center to further generate innovation for our cancer drug discovery efforts."

Max Planck Society, supported by Max Planck Foundation, and Daiichi Sankyo will jointly fund the drug discovery efforts at the Lead Discovery Center.

Daiichi Sankyo also has the exclusive rights to licence the programme at pre-defined terms for subsequent preclinical and clinical development.

In the future, the three organisations aim to further enhance their partnership into additional drug development programmes.