Roche's Genentech pens $420 million deal for Omass' preclinical IBD program
Roche’s Genentech unit has handed over $20 million in upfront cash for the license to Omass Therapeutics’ preclinical inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) program.
The program is the product of Omass’ OdyssION platform, which the British biotech has designed as a way to “interrogate how a protein interacts with its native ecosystem, separate from the confounding complexity of the cell.”
For now, Omass will continue to lead on the preclinical development of the IBD program. Once a specific candidate has been selected, Genentech will take over when it comes to moving the drug through human trials, regulatory activities and, ultimately, to commercialisation.
Should the resulting drug make it all the way to market, Omass could be in line for preclinical, development, commercial and net sales milestone payments that combine to reach more than $400 million, as well as tiered royalties, according to a Sept. 2 release.
Roche made a big move into the IBD space with its $7.1 billion upfront payment to Roivant and Pfizer for the U.S. and Japan rights to their bowel disease candidate afimkibart back in 2023. Roche has since taken the anti-TL1A antibody into a phase 3 study for Crohn's disease —one of the most common types of IBD—as well as phase 2 studies for dermatitis and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
Boris Zaïtra, head of Roche corporate business development, said:
There are nearly 8 million people living with IBD who are in need of innovative treatment approaches. Despite recent advancements, there is still a high unmet medical need which fuels our commitment to partnering with companies such as OMass Therapeutics focused on innovation to accelerate potentially transformative medicines and advance science.
Omass has previously revealed that it was working on a G protein-coupled receptor candidate for IBD. Speaking to Fierce Biotech in mid-2024 to celebrate the company’s recognition in last year’s Fierce 15, Omass CEO Ros Deegan said the biotech was “just gearing up to run in vivo studies” for the IBD program.
Omass was founded in 2016 to take forward technology spun out of the University of Oxford lab of professor Carol Robinson, Ph.D., who Deegan described to Fierce as a “pioneer [of] the ability to retain non-covalent interactions in the gas phase of the mass spectrometer.”
“We think of this as effectively solving the problem that exists for most other approaches to drug discovery with respect to the fact that you're always trading off between fidelity and precision,” the CEO said at the time.
In this morning’s release, Deegan said the OdyssION platform has now enabled “significant progress on this novel first-in-class target with a differentiated mechanism of action in inflammatory bowel disease.”
“Genentech brings a strong legacy of innovation in immunology and world-class scientific expertise, making them an ideal partner for this program,” the CEO added. “We are delighted to be partnering with them and build on the progress we have made to date.”
