05:54 AM EDT, 09/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Willow Biosciences ( CANSF ) overnight Wednesday announced a second program with an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturer to develop more sustainable manufacturing for a large volume ingredient used in a therapeutic with a global market of more than $1 billion.

The manufacturer that currently sells the target API is seeking Willow's know-how to develop an enzyme to replace a complex large scale chemical process. The development phase is expected to last six months with additional milestone payments to be made for achieving defined performance targets. These could be achieved as early as 2025.

This is Willow's fourth API partnership sealed this year that contains milestone or other commercial payments that could be received as early as next year.

"We are excited to start a second program with this leading API manufacturer to apply our technology platform to the production of more sustainable APIs for existing, large volume global markets," said Dr. Chris Savile, Willow's president & CEO.