France-based pharmaceutical company Les Labartoires Servier, backed by biotechnology company Amgen, signed a research collaboration agreement with US-based biopharmaceutical firm Miragen Therapeutics on Tuesday to advance three drug candidates for treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Miragen will receive $45m upfront from Servier, as well as research and milestone payments in the next three years which could potentially total $352m while Servier will obtain worldwide rights for the drugs, excluding in Japan and the US, in return. The firms estimate that possible milestone for the three drugs could collectively reach as much as $1bn.
Miragen picked up $4m of funding from its 2009 series B round, which featured Amgen Ventures, the corporate venturing division of biotechnology corporation Amgen, Broadview Ventures, the venture capital (VC) firm backed by the philanthropic Leducq Foundation, and charitable foundation The Peierls Foundation.
The round followed an $8m series A round the year before in which VC firms Atlas Venture and Boulder Ventures were the investors. Miragen was founded in 2007.
Emmanuel Canet, head of research and development at Servier, said: "We are very pleased with this new partnership, which demonstrates once again our ability to explore truly innovative treatments for patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases. Indeed, these diseases still represent the number one cause of mortality in most of the world."