Avila Therapeutics won an admirer and a collaborator when it inked a $209 million deal to partner up on one of its covalent drug programs with Clovis Oncology, a start-up backed with some serious cash and headed by an experienced crew of biotech players.

Boulder, CO-based Clovis agreed to pay an unspecified upfront and a slate of regulatory and sales milestones that add up to the $209 million total. And Clovis steps in to collaborate on the preclinical development of an Avila program for non small-cell lung cancer. The program–which Waltham, MA-based Avila is promising has unique covalent bonding ability–targets the T790M mutant form of the EGFR associated with resistance to Tarceva and Iressa, as well as targeting the initial activating EGFR mutations.