Genentech forges $350M deal for Bayhill diabetes program

San Mateo, CA-based Bayhill Therapeutics is pocketing a $25 million upfront fee and stands to gain up to $325 million in milestones from a new licensing deal with Genentech covering its early-stage Type 1 diabetes therapy.

"BHT-3021 represents a truly novel approach to treating type 1 diabetes," said Bayhill CEO Mark W. Schwartz, PhD. "We believe this collaboration with Genentech reflects the significant potential of our approach to antigen specific tolerance, and will allow us to accelerate and expand the development of BHT-3021, while continuing to develop additional products from our BHT-DNA platform."

In the deal Bayhill Therapeutics will be responsible for completing an ongoing Phase I/II study before handing the development program over to Genentech, Roche's biologics arm. Genentech will reimburse Bayhill for its study and the biotech company has the right to opt in on future development work while retaining co-promotion rights in the U.S.

"The ultimate goal for treatment of autoimmune disease is antigen specific therapy", commented Lawrence Steinman M.D., the founder, director and chairman of Bayhill's Scientific Advisory Board. "Genentech has long been an innovator in immunology based therapies, making it a strong collaborator for BHT-3021."

- check out the Bayhill release [1]

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