In the third deal in as many days, Roche is paying $66 million upfront to MOMA Therapeutics to find new drugs to go after cancer cell growth, with a potential $2 billion total in milestones and royalties.
Pictured: Roche’s building in California/iStock, JHVEPhoto
Roche has come out of the dealmaking gate blazing so far in 2024, racking up its third deal in as many days. On Thursday, the Swiss pharma announced it is entering into a collaboration and licensing agreement with Massachusetts-based MOMA Therapeutics for $66 million upfront.
The deal will see Roche gain access to MOMA’s platform, known as KnowledgeBase, to find new drugs to go after cancer cell growth and survival. Besides Roche’s $66 million upfront payment, the biotech could also potentially net other milestone payments for discovery, development, and eventual commercial targets worth $2 billion for MOMA.
For its part, MOMA will be responsible for selecting targets through to development, while Roche will be responsible for IND-enabling activities, clinical work, and commercialization efforts. MOMA will also get a right to co-fund the late-stage development of one product in exchange for increased royalties in the US.
“Given its deep expertise and global footprint in oncology, Roche represents an ideal collaborator with whom to further advance the application of MOMA’s platform in a way that impacts patients’ lives,” MOMA CEO Asit Parikh said in a statement. “The vision for this collaboration was crafted jointly with Roche to enable each party to bring its strengths to pursue this shared goal. It also contributes to the long-term sustainability of MOMA’s core focus as we advance our rich pipeline of precision oncology programs to the clinic.”
According to the biotech, MOMA’s platform uses “functionally related targets” that lack sequence homology but still possess a three-dimensional structure. So far, MOMA has used this platform to accelerate its drug discovery efforts in the ATPase target area. MOMA, named one of BioSpace’s top life science startups to watch in 2021, launched with an $86 million Series A and completed a $150 million Series B round in 2022.
“The broader field of cancer dependencies is of high importance for Roche, and we are looking forward to further deepening our knowledge and discovering novel targets involved in cancer cell growth and survival leveraging MoMA’s innovative platform,” James Sabry, global head of pharma partnering at Roche, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Roche has been on the warpath in dealmaking for the first week of the year, securing a $1 billion deal with China-based MediLink Therapeutics to develop an antibody-drug conjugate in oncology. On Wednesday, Roche also made a potentially $1 billion deal with Remix Therapeutics to create small molecule therapeutics.
The deal, apart from the $30 million upfront payment from Roche, will see Remix able to receive an additional $12 million in near-term milestone payments and other preclinical, clinical, commercial, and sales milestones of up to $1 billion as well as “tiered royalties.” Roche will gain exclusive rights to the targets. Remix will do discovery and preclinical work alongside Roche, but the Swiss pharma will be responsible for future work and commercialization.
Remix’s platform uses RNA processing pattern identification to alter how genes are read from the genome and develop medicines from there. The biotech currently has a candidate in the “early development” stage looking to go after adenoid cystic carcinoma and acute myelogenous leukemia.
Remix has been raking in solid investments since launching in 2020, with $81 million in its war chest. In 2022, the biotech secured a Series B round of $70 million, with participation from Foresite Capital, Arch Venture Partners, and Alexandria Venture Investments, among others.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
