On March 4, 2024, C4 Therapeutics (C4T), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to advancing targeted protein degradation science, announced that it has entered into a license and collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which operates its healthcare business as EMD Serono in the U.S. and Canada, to exclusively discover two targeted protein degraders from C4T's internal discovery pipeline. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advised C4T on the transaction.

C4T's partnership with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany leverages their collective strengths to advance an exciting program from C4T’s internal oncology pipeline and aims to transform how cancer is treated. Under the terms of the agreement, C4T will receive an upfront payment of $16 million, and be eligible to receive up to approximately $740 million in discovery, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments across the collaboration. In addition, C4T is eligible for mid-single to low-double digit tiered royalties on future sales for each program. Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany, will fund C4T’s discovery research efforts.

The Wilson Sonsini team that advised C4T on the transaction included Farah Gerdes, Sarah (Siedlak) Walker, Myra Sutanto Shen, Brandon King, Sarah Lane, Nikolaos Theodorakis, Tarek Helou, Kimberley Biagioli, Brendan Coffman, Catherine Lyons, Erin Fay, and Colleen Bal.

For more information, please see C4T's news release. Additional coverage can be found on Fierce Biotech and BioWorld.