Roche Subsidiary Genentech Enters $2 Billion Collaboration with Orionis Biosciences to Develop Molecular Glue Therapeutics

▎WuXi

Edited by Kant Content Team

Orionis Biosciences today announced a collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche GroupA multi-year collaboration worth up to $2 billion has been reached to jointly discover novel molecular glue drugs targeting challenging targets in major disease areas, including oncology and neurodegenerative diseases.

Orionis Biosciences is a company dedicated to discovering conditionally activated drugs for the treatment of life-threatening diseases. These drugs interact with novel targets through a unique mechanism of induced molecular proximity and synergy, enhancing potency and precision. The company’s development focus lies in leveraging its proprietary Allo-glue platform to develop monovalent molecular glue drugs and utilizing its a-Kine platform to create new types of precision biologics and cytokine-based immunotherapies. The company is advancing a deep and diversified pipeline of drug modalities, including the development of drugs that can modulate the adaptive and innate immune systems with high precision, paving a new path for the development of effective single-agent therapies for cancer and other diseases.

Orionis' Allo-Glue platform discovers potential targeted small-molecule drugs for disease targets that are difficult to develop drugs for using traditional discovery methods, through a variety of unique approaches.The platform integrates a proprietary set of chemical biology technologies, including bioassays, computational analysis, chemical libraries, and high-throughput discovery automation, for the rational design and optimization of small molecules that can promote or induce protein interactions in living cells. This includes molecular glues that facilitate interactions leading to target degradation, or small molecules that modulate the function of target proteins through direct action or allosteric mechanisms.

According to the terms of the agreement,Orionis will be responsible for discovering and optimizing molecular glues for targets designated by Genentech., while Genentech will be responsible for the preclinical后期, clinical development, regulatory applications, and commercialization of these small molecules.Orionis will receive a $47 million upfront payment and is eligible for development milestone payments that could exceed $2 billion.