- PMLiVE
Roche and Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT) have entered into a partnership worth over $1bn to discover new antibody-based therapeutics for cancer.
The multi-year collaboration combines Roche’s drug development capabilities with OBT’s proprietary OGAP-Verify discovery platform, which contains data on approximately 7,000 membrane proteins across most solid and haematological malignancies, as well as normal tissues.
OBT said the platform “enables greater sensitivity and thereby the selection of targets with improved attributes for drug development”.
Targets identified via the platform will be validated through the partnership, while any further research, development and commercialisation efforts against these targets will be led by Roche.
In exchange, OBT will receive up to $36m upfront and may be eligible for milestone payments potentially exceeding $1bn, as well as product royalties on net sales.
Boris Zaïtra, head of corporate business development at Roche, said: “We are excited to enter into this strategic collaboration with OBT. By combining Roche’s expertise in discovering and developing transformative therapeutics with OBT’s innovative target discovery platform, we aim to unlock new possibilities in cancer treatment.”
Also commenting on the collaboration, OBT’s chief executive officer, Christian Rohlff, said: “This collaboration builds on our efforts to enhance, validate and advance the discovery of oncology targets, and we look forward to leveraging Roche’s deep expertise to translate these insights into potential new treatments for patients.”
The announcement comes just days after Roche entered into a partnership worth up to $5.3bn to advance Zealand Pharma’s mid-stage obesity candidate petrelintide.
The exclusive collaboration and licensing agreement will see the companies co-develop and co-commercialise the long-acting amylin analog as both a standalone therapy and as a fixed-dose combination with Roche’s dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist CT-388.
Roche also recently gained exclusive global rights to Innovent Biologics’ DLL3-targeted antibody drug conjugate candidate in a deal worth over $1bn.
The January agreement gave Roche exclusive global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise IBI3009, which targets an antigen with low expression in normal tissues but significantly overexpressed in certain cancers, particularly small cell lung cancer and other neuroendocrine tumours.