Genentech Expands Molecular Glue Collaboration with Orionis in $2B Deal

Roche's Genentech has reinforced its commitment to molecular glue technology, announcing a second collaboration with Orionis Biosciences worth up to $2 billion. This latest deal, focused on developing small-molecule monovalent glue medicines for oncology, significantly expands upon their existing partnership and underscores the growing interest in this innovative therapeutic approach within the pharmaceutical industry.

Deal Structure and Financial Terms

The new multiyear collaboration involves an upfront payment of $105 million from Genentech to Orionis. The agreement includes potential research, development, commercial, and net sales milestone payments that could exceed $2 billion, as well as tiered royalties on any successfully marketed cancer therapies resulting from the partnership.

Under the terms of the deal, Orionis will be responsible for the discovery and optimization of molecular glues targeting "novel and challenging" oncology targets. Genentech will then take the lead on later-stage preclinical and clinical development, as well as potential commercialization efforts.

Expanding on Previous Success

This latest agreement builds upon a prior collaboration between Genentech and Orionis, established in 2023. The initial deal, which included a $47 million upfront payment, focused on developing small-molecule medicines for challenging targets across various therapeutic areas, including oncology and neurodegeneration.

Niko Kley, CEO of Orionis, expressed enthusiasm about the expanded partnership, stating, "We are thrilled about this second collaboration with Genentech, which expands our collaborative efforts in applying induced proximity concepts to include molecular glue types beyond targeted protein degraders." Kley also noted that the deal "underlines a strong alignment in vision for molecular glues, and the excellent work by both teams during the past year."

Industry Trend in Molecular Glue Technology

The Genentech-Orionis deal is part of a broader industry trend focusing on molecular glue technology, including targeted protein degraders. This year has seen several significant agreements in this space, including:

• Eli Lilly's $1.25 billion biobucks agreement with Magnet Biomedicine
• AbbVie's $1.64 billion deal with Neomorph
• Blueprint Medicines' revised pact with VantAI

Boris Zaïtra, head of Roche corporate business development, highlighted the potential of this technology, saying, "Molecular glues, including protein degraders and non-degraders, are an exciting therapeutic modality, providing access to disease-related proteins that have proven challenging and elusive to more traditional treatment modalities."