Enlaza Therapeutics Announces Strategic Collaboration With Vertex Pharmaceuticals
San Diego – September 2, 2025 – Cooley advised Enlaza Therapeutics, the first covalent biologics platform company, on its multi-target drug discovery collaboration with Vertex Pharmaceuticals, to utilize Enlaza’s proprietary War-Lock technology platform to develop small format drug conjugates and T-cell engagers for certain autoimmune diseases and improved conditioning in sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Enlaza will receive $45 million inclusive of an upfront payment and equity investment and is further eligible to receive more than $2 billion in future milestone payments, including research, development, regulatory and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties on net sales. Enlaza will lead all research activities through development candidate nomination, and Vertex will subsequently lead all future research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of successful product candidates. Vertex will fund all research and development costs related to the four-year collaboration.
Lawyers Charity Williams, Emily Mason, Ken Rollins and Dylan Kornbluth led the Cooley team advising Enlaza.
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