Novartis has stuck on a second deal with Orionis Biosciences, this time handing $40 million upfront to the molecular glue biotech to work on “challenging therapeutic targets across multiple disease areas.”
Back in 2020, the companies signed a four-year pact to discover “historically elusive targets” for various unnamed diseases. While the financial details of that deal weren’t disclosed at the time, this morning’s agreement shows that Novartis is serious about the relationship.
The Swiss pharma is stumping up $40 million for this latest “multi-year collaboration” to make use of Orionis’ Allo-Glue platform and its AI-driven discovery engine to “accelerate target and ligase profiling and molecular glue optimization,” according to a June 10 release.
Molecular glues are small molecules used to stabilize the interaction between two proteins that don’t typically interact. Orionis’ Allo-Glue platform uses an array of chemical biology tech to design and optimize small molecules that promote or induce interactions of proteins in living cells.
Waltham, Massachusetts-headquartered Orionis is also eligible for up to $1.4 billion in research, development and commercial milestone payments from today's deal, as well as tiered royalties should any drugs make it to market.
Novartis has a track record of returning to its preferred molecular glue partners. The Basel-based pharma has spent $270 million in upfront cash across two deals with Monte Rosa Therapeutics.
Novartis’ head of discovery John Tallarico said in the release that Orionis’ platform “offers an opportunity to rapidly uncover and design molecular glue mechanisms, enabling us to expand the horizon of targetable biology for future therapies.”
Molecular glue tech—including targeted protein degraders—has continued to gain Big Pharma attention. Last year saw Eli Lilly hand Magnet Biomedicine $40 million in upfront, near-term payments and an equity investment, while Gilead Sciences committed $85 million in upfront and potential option exercise payments for a chance to license a CDK2-directed asset from Kymera Therapeutics.
Orionis was co-founded by former Forma Therapeutics Vice President Nikolai Kley, who serves as its CEO, and VIB-Ghent University professor Jan Tavernier, who now serves as chief scientific advisor. In today's release, Kley said the company is “proud to renew and expand our collaboration with Novartis.”
“Having such a partner continue to engage deeply with us is a strong validation of the value of our molecular glue platform and the progress we have achieved toward rational and scalable discovery of this emerging drug class,” Kley added.
Orionis has already taken drugs into the clinic in the form of the solid tumor-focused ORB-011, which binds to and activates cDC1 dendritic cells, and ORB-021, which is engineered to direct cytokine activation to specific immune cells.
Novartis isn’t the only Swiss pharma to build a relationship with Orionis. Last year, Roche’s Genentech signed its second pact with the biotech, with Orionis receiving $105 million upfront to work on small-molecule monovalent glue medicines aimed at “novel and challenging targets” in oncology.