Ligand Licenses VER250840 to Cumulus Oncology - Seite 2

About the Vernalis Design Platform (VDP)

Vernalis (R&D) Limited is a Ligand subsidiary based in Cambridge, UK, and is a world leader in structure-guided drug discovery. The Vernalis Design Platform (VDP) integrates protein structure determination and engineering, fragment screening and molecular modeling, with medicinal chemistry, to enable success in novel drug discovery programs against highly-challenging targets. A key element to the success of VDP is establishing a robust platform for drug discovery for each target to validate hit identification using multiple proprietary assay and biophysical systems. Vernalis has collaborations across many therapeutic areas, including oncology, CNS, anti-infectives and inflammation, with global partners and a heritage of successful internal drug discovery in oncology and anti-infectives.

About Cumulus Oncology

Cumulus Oncology Ltd (Edinburgh, UK) identifies, evaluates and where appropriate in-licenses novel oncology assets where future value inflections are foreseen. The licensing agreement for VER250840 comes after a rigorous due diligence conducted by the Cumulus Oncology team. This encompassed an in-depth analysis of the existing data package and an evaluation of future clinical development options in molecularly-selected groups of patients, showing specific DNA repair aberrations. Cumulus Oncology will partner with DNA repair specialist, LXRepair (Grenoble, France) and AI specialist, Intelligent Omics (Nottingham, UK) to define the optimal clinical setting for VER250840. www.cumulusoncology.com

About Ligand Pharmaceuticals

Ligand is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing or acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies discover and develop medicines. Our business model creates value for stockholders by providing a diversified portfolio of biotech and pharmaceutical product revenue streams that are supported by an efficient and low corporate cost structure. Our goal is to offer investors an opportunity to participate in the promise of the biotech industry in a profitable, diversified and lower-risk business than a typical biotech company. Our business model is based on doing what we do best: drug discovery, early-stage drug development, product reformulation and partnering. We partner with other pharmaceutical companies to leverage what they do best (late-stage development, regulatory management and commercialization) to ultimately generate our revenue. Ligand’s Captisol platform technology is a patent-protected, chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs. OmniAb is a patent-protected transgenic animal platform used in the discovery of fully human mono- and bispecific therapeutic antibodies. The Vernalis Design Platform (VDP) integrates protein structure determination and engineering, fragment screening and molecular modelling, with medicinal chemistry, to enable success in novel drug discovery programs against highly-challenging targets. Ligand has established multiple alliances, licenses and other business relationships with the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Merck, Pfizer, Gilead, Janssen, Baxter International and Eli Lilly.