Calico and Broad Institute extend collaboration, adding focus on age-related neurodegeneration

Calico Life Sciences LLC (Calico) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced today that the two organizations have further extended their partnership with an added focus on age-related neurodegeneration. Initially announced in March 2015, this renewed agreement extends the collaboration until September 2029 and will continue to support ongoing programs focused on the biology and genetics of aging as well as early-stage drug discovery. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to continue our collaboration with the Broad Institute. It is entering its tenth year and we’ve made a considerable amount of progress, including discoveries that could make immunotherapies more effective for more patients. We are currently testing this approach in two early-stage clinical trials evaluating a pair of PTPN2 inhibitors,” said Arthur Levinson, founder and CEO of Calico. “With the expansion of our partnership to include age-related neurodegeneration, we are tackling a critical area of discovery that will allow us to access our collective expertise to advance an important area of research and clinical development.”

“Renewing our commitment to this partnership with Calico reflects our shared goal of advancing transformative biomedical research and therapies for age-related diseases,” said Todd Golub, director and founding core member of the Broad Institute. “Since we initiated our partnership, we have seen tremendous advances across new technologies and analytic methods that are enabling the discovery of new biological insights into human disease that have immediate impact on drug discovery. We look forward to working with the Calico team to further our insights into how aging impacts the brain and neurological function.”