STAT+: Roche inks drug discovery deal with Chinese biotech, focused on molecular glue medicines — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Defand Therapeutics signed a collaboration deal with Roche to discover and develop multiple molecular glue medicines for cancer and immune-driven diseases, announced Thursday
- The deal could be worth close to $1 billion between the upfront fee and milestone payments tied to preclinical, clinical, and regulatory goals, though financial terms were not disclosed
- Roche is enlisting Defand to discover new drugs rather than licensing existing clinical-stage medicines, a structure the source describes as signaling a potential shift in global drug development
- Molecular glue therapies are designed to create sticky, more effective connections onto problematic proteins in order to destroy them
- Revolution Medicines' molecular glue treatment Rasonque nearly doubled survival in pancreatic cancer patients, helping accelerate development interest across the field
Why it matters: By hiring Defand to discover rather than license, Roche is investing up to $1B in milestones in a Chinese biotech's ability to generate new molecular glue candidates — a modality that has gained momentum after Revolution Medicines' Rasonque nearly doubled pancreatic cancer survival, validating the sticky-protein approach as a viable platform.
Ask SkimNews
