Deuterium drugs have hit the big time. Concert Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company based in Lexington, Massachusetts, US, which specialises in swapping hydrogen atoms on known drugs for deuterium atoms, (Nature, subscription required) has signed a deal worth potentially $1 billion with pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline.

The company, which was founded in 2006, will develop 3 drugs with GSK: a protease inhibitor to treat HIV, a drug for chronic renal disease and a third mystery product. The company will also do their deuterium magic with 3 of GSKs pipeline products. They get $35 million upfront, with future payments being made for milestones reached and more upfront payments. (Press release).

The news has gone big, with pick up in major news outlets, (AP, Wall Street Journal, FierceBiotech) and GSK’s shares fell slightly after the deal was announced (Reuters).

In future the patent field around deuterating known drugs is likely to get murky, as Derek Lowe points out in The Atlantic but for now it looks like Concert is sitting pretty in its deuterium world.