J&J buys in­to Pro­tag­o­nist’s next-gen pep­tide sto­ry with $50M up­front and $940M in mile­stones

J&J’s ven­ture arm par­tic­i­pat­ed in the start­up rounds for Pro­tag­o­nist Ther­a­peu­tics’ ear­ly de­vel­op­ment, fu­el­ing its work on a new group of oral pep­tide ther­a­pies built to with­stand a per­ilous jour­ney in the gut. And that front row seat J&J took is now pay­ing added div­i­dends with a Big Phar­ma li­cens­ing pact for the Newark, CA-based biotech’s $PT­GX sec­ond drug in the pipeline.

J&J has come in with a $50 mil­lion up­front — a siz­able amount for a pre­clin­i­cal pro­gram — and a full slate of mile­stones worth up to $940 mil­lion to gain ex­clu­sive world­wide li­cens­ing rights to Pro­tag­o­nist’s PTG-200. The IL-23 pep­tide an­tag­o­nist is be­ing built to treat Crohn’s dis­ease, one of its top in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease tar­gets.

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