British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK has announced a strategic collaboration with Flagship Pioneering for the discovery and development of medicines and vaccines.

The companies plan to develop up to ten assets with the initial focus on respiratory and immunology fields.

The partnership will leverage GSK's expertise in disease areas and development capabilities and Flagship's portfolio of 40 bioplatform companies offering new modalities and technologies.

GSK and Flagship will initially invest $150m in an exploration phase to detect the most promising concepts.

Selected concepts will be advanced for further research and development by Flagship's bioplatform companies.

From these explorations, GSK and Flagship aim to detect a portfolio of up to ten medicines and vaccines.

GSK will hold an exclusive option for each of these assets for potential clinical development.

Flagship and its bioplatform companies are entitled to receive milestone payments of up to $720m on meeting upfront, development and commercial goals from GSK.

The agreement also comprises preclinical funding and tiered royalty payments for each programme acquired.

GSK chief scientific officer Tony Wood stated: “Together with Flagship, we will use science and technology to deliver best-in-class innovation at pace.

“We look forward to partnering with the talented team at Flagship, and their ecosystem of bioplatform companies, to further accelerate our pipeline and discover practice-changing medicines and vaccines for patients.”

Launched in 2000, Flagship focuses on inventing and building bioplatform companies.

Since its inception, the company has launched more than 100 ventures, amassing an aggregate value of $75bn.

Flagship Pioneering general partner Paul Biondi stated: “Flagship and GSK have a shared focus on delivering breakthrough medicines for patients.

“This collaboration is the latest example of Flagship’s innovation supply chain partnership model, which is designed to generate transformational medicines together with our pharma partners by leveraging our ecosystem of first-in-category bioplatforms to create a sustainable source of treatments for patients with the greatest unmet needs.”

The latest development comes after GSK and Curevac announced the restructuring of their partnership into a new licensing agreement.