June 24 (Reuters) - Antares Therapeutics said on Wednesday it entered a collaboration with Novartis NOVN.S that could be worth up to about $1.9 billion, aiming to develop therapies for historically hard-to-drug cancer targets.

Here are some details of the deal:

• Antares Therapeutics said it will receive $105 million upfront under the agreement with Novartis.

• The biotech is also eligible for up to $1.8 billion in additional payments across programs, inclusive of option exercise, development, regulatory, and commercial milestones.

• The company is eligible for tiered royalties on global net sales up to the low double-digit range when any medicines developed under the deal reach the market.

• The collaboration will use Antares' drug discovery platform to develop targeted small molecule medicines against oncology targets that have been considered undruggable.

• Antares will lead all research efforts and apply its proprietary discovery engine to a limited number of historically undruggable targets until option exercise.

• Antares Therapeutics added it will continue advancing its own pipeline of cancer medicines alongside the partnership.

• Antares' lead oncology program is expected to enter human testing in 2026, with several others in earlier stages of lab development.

• Antares Therapeutics launched in June 2025 as a spin‑out of Scorpion Therapeutics, backed by $177 million in funding, after Scorpion sold a drug programme to Eli Lilly for up to $2.5 billion.