Amgen and TScan Therapeutics, Inc. announced a multi-year collaboration that will use TScan's proprietary target discovery platform, TargetScan, to identify the antigens recognized by T cells in patients with Crohn's disease. Under the terms of the agreement, TScan will receive a $30 million upfront payment and is eligible to earn over $500 million in success-based preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones as well as tiered single-digit royalty payments. Amgen will evaluate a variety of modalities to create therapeutics based on targets discovered by TScan and will retain all global development and commercial rights.

Amgen also has an option to expand the collaboration to ulcerative colitis, under certain terms. Each party will be responsible for its own research expenses. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term for two conditions – Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis – that are characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract.