Japanese drugmaker Takeda has entered into a multi-year drug discovery collaboration with contract research organization (CRO) Charles River.

The companies, which have a long history of working together, will launch multiple integrated programs across Takeda’s four core therapeutic areas – oncology, gastroenterology, neuroscience and rare disease – with the ultimate goal of delivering preclinical candidates that Takeda can advance into clinical development.

“We expect the expertise of Charles River and Takeda will prove to be a powerful combination in delivering novel drug candidates,” said Charles River’s chairman, president and CEO James Foster.

Charles River will leverage its end-to-end drug discovery and safety assessment platform to explore potential therapeutic approaches and progress these programs towards candidate status. Takeda will then have the option to advance the candidates through clinical development.

Under the terms of the agreement, Takeda will pay Charles River a one-time, upfront fee to establish the collaboration. Charles River will be eligible to receive development payments with a potential value of more than $50 million per program in preclinical and clinical milestones for candidates that progress to registration.

The agreement also includes additional potential commercial milestone payments of up to $120 million plus royalties on launched products.