Antares has signed a discovery and commercialization collaboration with Novartis targeting small-molecule medicines across oncology targets described as long deemed undruggable. Antares will receive $105 million upfront, with potential milestones up to $1.8 billion and tiered royalties on global net sales. Under the agreement, Antares leads discovery and applies its covalent drug discovery engine—combining screening libraries, chemical proteomics, structure-driven computational chemistry, and machine learning—until Novartis exercises options on specific programs. Novartis positions the deal as an expansion of its approach to oncology discovery where historical target biology has limited conventional chemistry. Antares, founded as a spin-out of Scorpion Therapeutics, launched with a Series A financing in June 2025 after Eli Lilly acquired Scorpion for $2.5 billion. The company will continue advancing independent cancer and other indication candidates alongside the Novartis work. The structure emphasizes staged risk-sharing for early discovery while giving a major pharma partner a pipeline-building route into challenging oncology biology.