▎WuXi AppTec/Report
Today, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and Microbiotica announced a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement.To discover, develop, and promote biomarkers, targets, and drugs for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)。
Microbiotica is a biotechnology startup that originated from the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Founded in late 2016 with funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group, the company is dedicated to the development of microbiome-based therapies.Its platform comprises world-leading microbial strain collections and associated reference genome databases, enabling gut bacterial identification with unprecedented precision at a clinical trial scale.The company can rapidly achieve this through its industrial cultivation and sequencing pipeline, providing clinical trial samples with optimal available representativeness for strain-level identification of bacteria. AI-powered analysis of the complex datasets generated by these studies enables the identification of microbiome features associated with phenotypes. Furthermore, the availability of a bacterial strain collection facilitates biological evaluation of bacteria in proprietary translational models, including humanized microbiota mouse models.
Pursuant to the terms of this Agreement,Microbiotica will leverage its precision metagenomics microbiome platform to analyze patient samples from Genentech’s clinical trials of investigational IBD drugs, with the aim of identifying microbiome biomarker signatures associated with drug response, as well as novel IBD drug targets and live bacterial therapeutic products.Microbiotica will receive an upfront payment of a certain amount and is eligible to receive up to $534 million in research and development and commercialization milestone payments upon the achievement of certain predefined milestones. In addition, Microbiotica is eligible to receive sales royalties on certain products resulting from the collaboration. Genentech has the option to license products arising from this collaboration.
▲Dr. Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica (Image source: Microbiotica official website)
Dr. Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, stated: “This collaboration combines Genentech’s world-class investigational IBD therapies with Microbiotica’s world-class microbiome capabilities. We are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Genentech’s scientists to bring precision metagenomics into the clinical stage for the first time, enabling us to develop biomarkers and therapeutics that benefit patients.”
“This collaboration reflects Microbiotica’s strategy of leveraging its platform for drug and biomarker discovery while expanding the platform’s capabilities. Although Genentech will retain rights to its proprietary biomarkers, targets, and drugs, the partnership will enable Microbiotica to continue rapidly expanding its existing leading reference genome database and strain collection, further strengthening its value across all therapeutic areas,” added Dr. Romanos.
“Dr. James Sabry, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Genentech Partnering, said:”We believe that the microbiome represents a new biomedical paradigm for both understanding drug responses and serving as a novel therapeutic approach.. We chose to partner with Microbiotica because of its high-quality scientific expertise. We look forward to working together to bring new medicines to patients with IBD.”
References:
[1] Microbiotica Enters into Microbiome Collaboration with Genentech
[2] Genentech and Microbiotica Ink Multi-Year Collaboration Deal
[3] Genentech dives deeper into the microbiome, inking $534M deal with Microbiotica to develop IBD meds