Ice Miller’s South Korea-based client Prazer Therapeutics Inc. (Prazer) has entered into a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to advance the discovery of novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. This partnership follows Prazer’s Series B financing led earlier this year by J&J, through its corporate venture capital organization, Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJDC, Inc.).

Prazer is a biotechnology company developing orally available, brain-penetrant targeted protein degraders with a novel approach to targeted protein degradation (TPD). Their proprietary SPiDEM™ platform is engineered to identify new degradation mechanisms and address limitations associated with traditional bivalent and monovalent protein degraders. This new collaboration with J&J will help Prazer leverage their innovation platform and advance targeted protein degradation to accelerate the discovery of new potential TPD medicines for patients.

The Ice Miller deal team was led by Business group partner TaeSoo Sean Kim and included partner Mai Zymaris and law clerk Kelly Xia (not yet admitted to practice in any jurisdiction). Intellectual Property partners Fabian Koenigbauer and Robert Keeler also provided key assistance. Further assistance was provided by associate Brigid Sharek.

Ice Miller’s Life Sciences practice group has extensive experience working with biotechnology companies to help them with seed-stage funding, intellectual property procurement and counseling, and licensing and strategic alliances.