NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Celera today said that it has licensed exclusive worldwide rights to Bayer Schering Pharma for five cancer-related drug targets and associated in vivo diagnostic imaging.
The Alameda, Calif.-based molecular diagnostics firm said that it will retain in vitro diagnostic rights and will be able to develop and sell companion diagnostics specific to therapeutic compounds developed by Bayer under the deal.
Celera said that the therapeutic targets are over-expressed on the surface of several different tumor cell types and were identified using its proteomics discovery platform.
Bayer Schering Pharma will pay Celera a one-time fee for the exclusive rights to the five targets. It also will make additional milestone payments based on development and commercialization goals, and it also will pay royalties to Celera based on product sales.
Steve Rubin, vice president of proteomic research at Celera, said that the deal allows Celera "the flexibility to advance part of our broad pipeline of validated targets for additional future value."