Five Prime Therapeutics, a biotech based in San Francisco, has entered into its second strategic drug discovery alliance with GlaxoSmithKline in two years.

The new collaboration gives GSK exclusive access to Five Prime's drug discovery platforms in up to six programs to identify first-in-class agents and new mechanisms relevant to refractory asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). GSK will receive access to Five Prime's comprehensive, proprietary collection of functional human secreted proteins and transmembrane receptor proteins and Five Prime will apply its technology platforms to identify and validate potential drug targets and drug candidates.

GSK will have an option to exclusively license selected targets discovered by Five Prime through the collaboration. For a majority of licensed targets, GSK would take on sole responsibility for additional preclinical studies, clinical development, manufacturing and worldwide commercialization of products. For a limited number of GSK-licensed targets, Five Prime would have the opportunity to advance biologic products through human proof-of-mechanism clinical studies, after which GSK would have an exclusive option to exclusively license global rights for such products in exchange for enhanced financial payments to Five Prime.

Five Prime will also be eligible to receive up to $30 million over the next four years from an upfront fee, the purchase of Five Prime equity by GSK, research funding and option payments related to the research program. In addition, in the event that GSK licenses a candidate after Five Prime has developed such candidate through the proof-of-mechanism stage, Five Prime would be eligible for up to $193.5 million in potential option exercise fees and milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on global net sales for each product resulting from a selected drug target.

"We are delighted to form this second strategic alliance with GSK to find first-in-class drugs and drug targets for treatment-refractory respiratory diseases, which is a core area for Five Prime,” said Lewis T. Williams, founder, president and CEO of Five Prime. “Our existing GSK alliance to discover products for skeletal muscle disorders, which was recently expanded last year, is making great progress, so we are extremely pleased to enter into this additional collaboration.”