Visterra Signs Antibody Discovery Collaboration Deal With Pfizer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Visterra Inc., developer of novel therapeutics to treat major diseases, announced today that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Pfizer to discover novel antibodies using Visterra’s proprietary platform.

“We are very pleased that our first pharmaceutical partnership is with Pfizer, an industry leader with broad drug development expertise”

Under the terms of the agreement, Visterra will receive an up-front fee as well as research funding, and is eligible to receive predetermined payments for meeting certain research and development milestones, plus royalties upon any product commercialization.

“We are very pleased that our first pharmaceutical partnership is with Pfizer, an industry leader with broad drug development expertise,” said Steven Brugger, CEO of Visterra. “This collaboration further supports the potential utility of Visterra’s antibody design platform, and we look forward to collaborating with Pfizer while we continue to advance Visterra’s own internal product pipeline.”

“We view Visterra’s technology as a promising approach for engineering therapeutic antibodies, and look forward to this collaboration” said Jose-Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, Senior Vice President, Research and Development, Biotherapeutics with Pfizer.

About Visterra

Visterra discovers and develops novel drugs for the prevention and treatment of major diseases. The company’s proprietary platform generates unique structural information that identifies novel drug target sites and guides the design of drugs to effectively combat disease. The company’s lead product candidate, VIS410, is a broad spectrum monoclonal antibody for the prevention and treatment of both seasonal and pandemic influenza. The company is building a proprietary pipeline in infectious disease, and continuing to expand its disease area focus through strategic partnerships in infectious and other diseases. Visterra was founded by Dr. Ram Sasisekharan of MIT and is backed by Polaris Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, and Lux Capital. For more information please visit www.visterrainc.com.