FivePrime Therapeutics, Inc, of San Francisco, California, announced a 2-year collaborative research and license agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim to discover novel therapeutic products to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other diseases. Potentially worth over $75 million to FivePrime should all milestones be achieved, FivePrime receives an upfront payment and funding for research activities, and Boehringer Ingelheim obtains exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize products and targets discovered in return for future milestone payments and royalties based on sales.

The basis for the collaboration is FivePrime's protein screening library, which contains essentially all human secreted proteins and their receptors, including many that are unavailable in public collections. Using its automated system, FivePrime can screen its complete set of human secreted proteins in medically relevant, cell-based assays in three new clinical indications every 4 months.

In addition to specific, targeted screens in lupus and RA, FivePrime is developing screens in areas such as modulation of T-regulatory cells and macrophage subsets. The company's lead product in immunology, FPT025, is a novel secreted cytokine that was identified in an assay designed to find factors that would enhance the proliferation or survival of monocytes. Unrelated to any known classes of cytokines, FPT025 expands monocytes and is involved in early differentiation of dendritic cells. The receptor for FPT025 was identified by FivePrime by screening the extracellular domains of the receptors in FivePrime's protein library. Research is underway to evaluate FPT025's immunomodulatory potential in oncology, inflammation, and infectious disease.

Founded in December 2001, FivePrime has raised $85 million in capital to date from investors including Domain Associates LLC, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Versant Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, the JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund, and Singapore BioInnovations Pte Ltd.

—A. Techman