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The Janus Property Company is pleased to announce that Manhattanville Factory District and Mink Building tenant, Volastra Therapeutics, has completed an oncology drug discovery and development deal with Bristol Myers Squibb Company (BMS) which is valued at more than $1 billion. The multi-year collaboration will see BMS leverage Volastra’s proprietary CINTech platform to identify chromosomal instability-related (CIN) and synthetic lethal targets.
Under the terms of the agreement, Volastra will be responsible for conducting various activities for an undisclosed number of targets. For these select targets, Volastra will conduct all research activities through development candidate selection and BMS may take on the responsibilities for all subsequent development, regulatory and commercialization activities of the development candidates under an exclusive worldwide license.
“Janus is so pleased to watch Volastra’s success and growth in our West Harlem Manhattanville campus,” said Scott Metzner, Founder and Principal, Janus, who added, “This is just one more example of the attention our robust Manhattanville life sciences ecosystem is attracting from the most important international companies in that space.” The neighborhood includes Columbia University, City College and Columbia Medical Center, along with numerous other for-profit and not-for-profit groups including the New York Structural Biology Center, founded by nine pre-eminent research institutions and now a global leader in structural biology with unsurpassed expertise and instrumentation.
Volastra will receive $30 million in an upfront payment and will also be eligible to receive up to $1.1 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments. Additionally, Volastra is entitled to receive royalties on net global sales of any product commercialized by Bristol Myers Squibb resulting from the collaboration.
“The combination of Bristol Myers Squibb’s expertise in oncology and Volastra’s deep understanding of chromosomal instability as cancer’s Achilles heel makes for an ideal partnership to advance novel therapies for patients,” said Charles Hugh-Jones, M.D, FRCP, CEO at Volastra. “Through this collaboration, Volastra will apply our innovative platform towards the creation of effective CIN-targeted medicines. We look forward to working together with Bristol Myers Squibb to transform cancer treatment.”
Having relocated to the Mink Building from JLabs almost two years ago, Volastra has expanded twice more in the Mink Building since then.
About the Janus Property Company
The Janus Property Company is a developer, long-term owner and manager of commercial, mixed-use and residential properties in New York City, with a current primary focus on the creative redevelopment of the Manhattanville Factory District in West Harlem. Since 1989, Janus has consistently undertaken important and complex community development projects, creating enduring value for its tenants, partners, lenders and the greater New York City community. It specializes in understanding the numerous issues involved in developing and managing real property in New York. This has resulted in an impressive array of successful projects ranging from the extensive rehabilitation and new construction of market rate and affordable rental and condominium housing to mixed-use projects, small and large-scale life science properties and master-planned neighborhood development. Janus is headquartered in the Manhattanville Factory District.
About Volastra’s CINtech Platform
Volastra’s CINtech platform harnesses a deep biological understanding of chromosomal instability (CIN) as cancer’s most targetable vulnerability to develop promising therapies for patients. CINtech integrates proprietary imaging technologies, model cell line systems and computational analytics to drive a broad and differentiated pipeline.
About Volastra Therapeutics, Inc.
Volastra Therapeutics is a New York-based drug discovery and therapeutics company pioneering novel approaches to treating cancer by exploiting chromosomal instability (CIN), cancer’s most targetable vulnerability. Founded by Lewis Cantley, Ph.D., Olivier Elemento, Ph.D., and Samuel Bakhoum, M.D., Ph.D., Volastra is rapidly developing and implementing new methods to exploit this vulnerability. Leveraging its proprietary CINtech platform, the company is advancing a novel synthetic lethal and immune activating pipeline. Volastra’s lead program targets KIF18A, a mitotic kinesin, with first-in-human studies anticipated to start in early 2023.
For more information, please visit volastratx.com.