Antares Therapeutics signs potential $1.9 billion cancer drug deal with Novartis

Eli Lilly and Co

Yesterday 13:12

June 24 (Reuters) - Antares Therapeutics said on Wednesday it entered a collaboration with Novartis NOVN.S that could be worth up to about $1.9 billion, aiming to develop therapies for historically hard-to-drug cancer targets.     
     
Here are some details of the deal:

Antares Therapeutics said it will receive $105 million upfront under the agreement with Novartis.
The biotech is also eligible for up to $1.8 billion in additional payments across programs, inclusive of option exercise, development, regulatory, and commercial milestones.
The company is eligible for tiered royalties on global net sales up to the low double-digit range when any medicines developed under the deal reach the market.
The collaboration will use Antares' drug discovery platform to develop targeted small molecule medicines against oncology targets that have been considered undruggable.
Antares will lead all research efforts and apply its proprietary discovery engine to a limited number of historically undruggable targets until option exercise.
Antares Therapeutics added it will continue advancing its own pipeline of cancer medicines alongside the partnership.
Antares' lead oncology program is expected to enter human testing in 2026, with several others in earlier stages of lab development.
Antares Therapeutics launched in June 2025 as a spin‑out of Scorpion Therapeutics, backed by $177 million in funding, after Scorpion sold a drug programme to Eli Lilly for up to $2.5 billion.

 (Reporting by Sahil Pandey in Bengaluru)
 ((Sahil.Pandey@thomsonreuters.com;))