Singapore: Phylogica, a leading Australian peptide drug discovery company, has extended its collaboration with Janssen Biotech and its affiliates to discover, develop and commercialize new classes of peptide-drug conjugates derived from Phylogica's Phylomer drug discovery platform.

Phylogica has received an undisclosed payment for funding additional research associated with the extension of the collaboration. The partnership with Janssen was originally established in January 2012. In the first 12 months of the collaboration, Phylogica has successfully constructed novel libraries
comprising over 100 billion unique Phylomer peptides conjugated to Janssen proprietary therapeutic cargo. In the next stage of the collaboration, Phylogica will screen these libraries against a disease cell type of interest to Janssen to identify cell-specific and cell-penetrating Phylomer peptide conjugates as potential drug candidates.

Under the terms of this agreement, Janssen could develop multiple Phylomer-based drug candidates and has the option to expand the scope of the collaboration to include additional cell-specific Phylomer conjugates for the development of a further ten drug candidates. Phylogica is eligible to receive additional research funding and could potentially receive license fees, milestone payments and royalties on worldwide sales of any product resulting from the collaboration.

"We are delighted to extend our collaboration on peptide drug conjugates with Janssen," said Dr Paul Watt, Phylogica's Chief Executive Officer. "The encouraging progress of our cell penetrating peptide discovery program suggests that our Phylomer peptides can be used to target specific cell types and deliver large biological payloads across cell membranes. This application has broad potential in many disease areas such as cancer and other indications with a high unmet medical need."