Antares Therapeutics, a Scorpion spinout with labs in South San Francisco and Boston, has inked a collaboration with Swiss pharma heavyweight Novartis that could be worth about $1.9 billion. The deal folds in an upfront payment, a stack of development and sales milestones, and future royalties tied to global revenue. In return, Antares will point its discovery engine at small molecule cancer drugs that go after targets researchers have long called undruggable, while it keeps pushing its own pipeline toward first-in-human studies.
According to Reuters, Novartis will hand over $105 million up front, and Antares is eligible for as much as $1.8 billion in additional payments, with tiered royalties on global net sales that could climb into the low double-digit range. Antares will lead all research efforts under the collaboration and apply its proprietary platform to a limited set of oncology targets until Novartis decides whether to exercise any options. The agreement lands at a time when big pharma is looking to bulk up its toolkit for small molecule oncology.
In a press release, Antares Therapeutics said its most advanced oncology program is expected to reach human testing in 2026, and that it plans to keep advancing its independent pipeline alongside the Novartis partnership. The company laid out plans to use computational chemistry, mass spectrometry, and other discovery tools on historically hard-to-drug targets. Antares launched in June 2025 with $177 million in Series A financing and lists offices in Boston and South San Francisco.
Why Novartis Is Betting On Undruggable Targets
Big drugmakers have been opening their wallets for platforms that can interrogate proteins once viewed as off limits, since a single successful small molecule hit can unlock a whole new therapy class. The Scorpion to Lilly sale and the subsequent Antares spinout highlighted that trend, as reported by Chemical & Engineering News, and helped set the stage for platform plays like this one.
Local Footprint And What Comes Next
Antares’ South San Francisco base plants the startup in the heart of the Bay Area biotech cluster that feeds lab talent and partnerships, while its Boston office ties it into that region’s drug development scene. According to its press materials, the Novartis deal is expected to help Antares push lead programs toward the clinic, with Novartis stepping in on broader development and commercialization if it exercises its options. That setup gives the smaller company more runway and outside validation while it builds out the platform.
Next steps include immediate joint discovery work and IND-enabling studies, funded in part by the $105 million upfront payment. Market watchers will be tracking whether Novartis moves quickly to exercise options or lets the deal play out over time through milestones. Reuters notes that the timing and money are structured to reward steady clinical and regulatory progress.
For South San Francisco and for Antares employees in Boston, the agreement is a fresh reminder that platform innovation remains one of the fastest routes from lab bench to large-scale partnerships. Whether patients eventually see the benefit will hinge on whether Antares’ discovery engine can deliver safe, target-specific medicines once the programs reach the clinic.
