Roche sticks with molecular glue, partnering Monte Rosa
Roche seems determined to develop a commanding position in the emerging molecular glue category, signing up to a $2 billion partnership with Monte Rosa Therapeutics that includes a $50 million upfront fee.
The two companies will apply Monte Rosa’s QuEEN platform to develop molecular glue therapies against targets in cancer and neurological diseases that were “previously considered impossible to drug,” with an option to extend the scope of the collaboration within the next two years.
It is the second molecular glue deal for Roche in the space of a month, coming after an alliance with Orionis that included $47 million upfront, had a total value of up to $2 billion, and is also aimed at oncology and neuroscience applications.
Monte Rosa’s chief executive, Markus Warmuth, said the Roche deal will “amplify our collective strengths and capabilities to accelerate the development of transformative treatments for patients across several indications.”
Molecular glues are small molecules that encourage two proteins to come together that would not normally interact, generally by altering the structure of a target protein to encourage another to bind to it.
One application is to tag the target proteins for the attention of cellular enzymes that break them down in a mechanism known as protein degradation, which could be a way to target the 80% of human proteins that cannot be targeted using regular ligand-binding approaches.
The science behind the approach is three decades old and has already resulted in some approved therapies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Revlimid (lenalidomide) and Pomalyst (pomalidomide) for blood cancers. In the last couple of years, however, there have been signs of wider interest in pharma with investment flowing into the category and a series of big-ticket licensing deals.
Some recent examples include a $4 billion alliance with Evotec signed earlier this year by BMS, MSD’s recently-agreed $2.55 billion deal with Proxygen, and a $1.9 billion partnership between Astellas Pharma and Cullgen.
Roche’s global head of pharma partnering, James Sabry, said that molecular glue degraders “are a powerful new class of small molecules that target disease-related proteins that traditional approaches have been unable to address.”
Under the terms of the deal, Monte Rosa will lead the discovery and preclinical activities against multiple cancer and neurological disease targets to a “defined point,” with Roche claiming the right to take over thereafter and carry out late-stage preclinical and clinical development.
Monte Rosa's in-house pipeline is led by MRT-2359, a molecular glue degrader that breaks down a protein called GSPT1 and is in phase 1/2 trials as a potential treatment for lung cancer and other malignancies.
Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay.
