GSK, Flagship Pioneering announce collaboration

GSK and Flagship Pioneering announced they have entered a collaboration with the goal of discovering and developing a portfolio of future transformational medicines and vaccines, starting in respiratory and immunology. This alliance brings together GSK‘s disease area expertise and development capability with Flagship’s ecosystem of bioplatform companies, inclusive of its novel modalities and technologies, to make major advances in healthcare. GSK and Flagship will initially fund up to $150M upfront to support an exploration phase to identify the most promising concepts for further research and development with Flagship’s bioplatform companies. From these explorations, the collaboration aims to identify a portfolio of up to 10 novel medicines and vaccines which will each be subject to an exclusive option by GSK for further clinical development. Under the terms of the agreement, Flagship and its bioplatform companies will be eligible to receive up to $720M in upfront, development and commercial milestones from GSK, as well as preclinical funding and tiered royalties, for each acquired programme.