Enodia Therapeutics has acquired Kezar Life Sciences’ assets from its Sec61-based discovery and development programme.
The acquisition enables Enodia to advance its understanding of Sec61 selectivity mechanisms, expanding biological and translational insights for faster progression toward key clinical milestones.
Under the terms of the purchase agreement between Enodia and Kezar, Kezar will receive an initial upfront payment of $1m, and will receive future payments upon achievement of certain development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones, for a potential total of up to $127m. Enodia will also pay tiered royalties on net sales.
“Kezar has made significant early advances in the Sec61 field with the discovery of small molecule inhibitors,” said Yves Ribeill, chief executive officer of Enodia Therapeutics.
“By integrating Kezar’s extensive preclinical datasets into our selective targeted protein degradation platform, this acquisition enhances our ability to make accelerated, yet informed development decisions across our candidate programmes.”
Enodia’s platform enables selective Sec61 Translocon modulation, a novel approach to inhibit disease-relevant proteins at the point of their synthesis before pathological effects occur, while preserving essential physiological functions. Enodia has built a broad chemical space spanning multiple Sec61 inhibitor families, supported by biological datasets, including proteomics, Cryo-EM and cell line libraries to enable rational small-molecule drug design powered by machine learning. Insights from Kezar’s Sec61-based programmes will further strengthen Enodia’s core focus on Sec61-driven selectivity for targeting protein degradation.
“Kezar has spent nearly 10 years pioneering research and drug discovery efforts around the Sec61 translocon and continues to have strong conviction in this novel target,” said Chris Kirk, CEO of Kezar Life Sciences.
“The team at Enodia is poised to make great progress in this space, and we are excited to see our efforts being carried on and expanded upon.”