Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca is collaborating with Bicycle Therapeutics to develop a novel class of small-molecule medicines for treating respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The cooperation could be worth more than $1 billion, including an undisclosed upfront payment, for Bicycle Therapeutics if all planned programs reach the market.

The research and development is based on Bicycle Therapeutics’ proprietary bicyclic peptides, or Bicycles. According to the Cambridge, UK-headquartered biotech firm, Bicycles exhibit an affinity and exquisite target specificity usually associated with antibodies, while a low molecular weight delivers rapid and deep tissue penetration that enables more efficient targeting of tumors.

In addition, their peptidic nature provides a “tuneable” pharmacokinetic half-life and a renal route of clearance, avoiding the liver and gastrointestinal tract toxicities often seen with other drug modalities. Under the terms of the deal, Bicycle Therapeutics will identify Bicycles for an undisclosed number of targets to be specified by AstraZeneca, while AstraZeneca will be responsible for further development and product commercialization.

The alliance expands the scope of both companies’ capabilities to indications outside their core focus on oncology. “The bicycle platform expands our drug discovery capabilities and enables us to broaden the range of targets we can prosecute across a range of disease indications,” said Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president, innovation medicines and early development biotech unit and global business development at AstraZeneca.

 Kevin Lee, CEO of Bicycle Therapeutics, added that Bicycle’s focus so far has been in oncology, and bringing AstraZeneca’s expertise in respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases substantially expands its potential. Bicycle Therapeutics was established to capitalize on research initiated at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. It raised $32 million from investors in a second round of funding in October 2014. The company said it is rapidly advancing towards the clinic with its lead molecule, BT1718, the first example of its Bicycle technology.