Google-funded startup Calico has entred into a five-year research collaboration with the biotech company C4 Therapeutics to develop drugs for diseases of aging, including cancer.

The firms will leverage C4T’s expertise and capabilities in targeted protein degradation to jointly discover and advance small molecule protein degraders as therapeutic agents to remove certain disease-causing proteins, according to a press release.

“We know from decades of translational research that it can be incredibly challenging to find effective pharmacologic inhibitors of many of the biologically well-validated targets, particularly in cancer,” said Hal Barron, R&D chief over at Calico, in a statement. “Through the alternative strategy of specifically targeting such proteins for degradation, we believe we have the opportunity to identify promising new therapeutics in cancer and in other diseases as well.”

Calico has previously struck partnerships with academic institutes like the University of California, San Francisco and biopharma companies such as AbbVie.