Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the worlds biggest drugmaker, will pay closely held Bind Therapeutics Inc. as much as $200 million per potential drug to develop medicines using its nanotechnology platform.

The companies will collaborate on preclinical work and New York-based Pfizer will have the option to pursue development of compounds it selects, Bind said in a statement today. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company may receive as much as $50 million in upfront and development payments and is eligible for $160 million more per compound tied to regulatory and sales goals.

The deal is the second this year for Bind, which uses nanotechnology to selectively reach disease sites in the body in treating cancer, inflammatory ailments and cardiovascular disorders without affecting healthy tissue. In January, Amgen Inc. said it would pay as much as $180.5 million for the right to develop cancer drugs using Binds technology.

The pharmaceutical industry is reaching an inflection point in terms of adopting this as a major strategic technology for the industry, Bind Chief Executive Officer Scott Minick said in an interview.

Binds technology comes from the laboratories of Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Omid Farokhzad, of Harvard Medical School. Its nanoparticles, which it calls Accurins, can travel through the body without being detected or destroyed by the immune system, Minick said. Carrying potent drugs, the particles home in on specific disease cells and avoid poisoning healthy ones.

In addition to partnerships with Pfizer and Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen, Bind is developing a slate of potential drugs in-house. The companys leading therapy is BIND-014, which targets tumors with the cancer drug docetaxel. Bind said last week it will present results from a first-stage study of the treatment at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting on April 9.

Pfizer partnered with Bind because these delivery systems are a unique approach that potentially offer highly precise targeted therapeutics increasing the window for broader patient treatment options, said Lauren Starr, a spokeswoman for the drugmaker.

Pfizer declined less than 1 percent to $29.03 at the close in New York. The shares have increased 16 percent this year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Drew Armstrong in New York at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net; Meg Tirrell in New York at mtirrell@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

Excerpt from:

Pfizer to Pay Bind Up to $210 Million in Nanotechnology Deal