Lab-in-a-loop specialist Relation attracts Novartis alliance

In its second major partnership with a big pharma group, UK-based AI and multi-omics company Relation Therapeutics has agreed to seek out targets for allergic diseases on behalf of Novartis.

The alliance includes a $55 million upfront commitment from the Swiss group to Relation – in the form of cash, an equity investment, and R&D funding – with another $1.7 billion in the offing tied to preclinical, development, regulatory, and commercial sales milestones.

The partnership comes a year – almost to the day – after Relation announced two collaborations with UK-based pharma group GSK that were focused on finding new targets in fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis, with an upfront value of $45 million, another $63 million in funding, and $200 million in milestones per target across the two deals.

Relation's draw is its 'lab-in-a-loop' process of AI-driven target and drug discovery, in which algorithms are used to find targets using human genetics, single-cell multi-omics directly from human tissue, and functional assays, with the results fed back in to refine the process.

The approach is designed to minimise the risk of clinical failure in new drug discovery projects by ensuring targets are robustly validated before any candidates directed against them start human testing.

The collaboration with Novartis is focusing on 'atopic' diseases, a group of allergic conditions like allergic rhinitis, asthma and atopic dermatitis – generally driven by an exaggerated immunoglobulin E (IgE) immune response – that can occur together in some patients.

"Atopic diseases affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide," said David Roblin, Relation's chief executive.

"Our technology defines the molecular pathways in diseased tissue compared to healthy tissue to help discover possible new therapeutics for medicines," he added. "Together with Novartis' development and commercialisation capabilities, we can potentially deliver medicines that transform the standard of care."

Under the collaboration, Relation will take the lead on observational studies to generate functional 'cell atlases' based on tissue taken from patients that capture their disease state.

Novartis has made immuno-dermatology a key pillar of its R&D, with candidates in its pipeline like BTK inhibitor remibrutinib for food allergies and Dren Bio-partnered bispecific antibody GHZ339 for atopic dermatitis, which are both in phase 2.

Also today, Relation revealed that it had raised a further $26 million from its existing investors NVentures, NVIDIA's venture capital arm, along with DCVC and Magnetic Ventures, that Roblin said will "strengthen the base" of its mission to "discover the next generation of medicines through technology."