Osaka, Japan, April 25, 2024 - Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka, Japan; President: Toichi Takino; “Ono”) today announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration agreement with PRISM BioLab (Head Office; Kanagawa, Japan; President & CEO: Dai Takehara; “PRISM") to generate novel drug candidates in the oncology area.

 Based on the agreement, Ono and PRISM will collaborate to identify and generate development drug candidates of a protein-protein interaction (PPI) target selected by Ono utilizing PRISM’s proprietary PepMetics® technology. Ono will acquire exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize small molecule compounds generated through the collaboration. Ono will make to PRISM an upfront fee, research funding, milestone payments based on the progress of research, development and commercialization, tiered royalties based on net sales, and other terms.

 “We are actively engaged in creating innovative drugs through open innovation to address unmet medical needs across a wide range of diseases,” said Seishi Katsumata, Executive Director, Discovery & Research of Ono. “We highly appreciate PRISM’s PepMetics® technology in PPI drug discovery, which we believe has potentials to identify and develop novel small molecule drugs for therapeutic targets that had been previously difficult to modulate with small molecules. We anticipate that the technology will further expand our development pipeline for innovative new drugs.”

 “We are very excited to enter into this collaboration with Ono Pharmaceuticals who has a history of creating innovative drugs,” said Dai Takehara, President & CEO of PRISM Biolab. “We believe that our PepMetics® technology will change the current paradigm in drug discovery by turning previously undruggable PPIs into targets readily druggable with small molecules. Through close collaboration between creative scientists of both companies, we expect to generate innovative and game-changing drugs for the benefit of patients.”