Enterome will receive a €40m upfront payment in cash and equity and is eligible to receive additional payments, based on achieving clinical and sales milestones for each licensed therapeutic candidate, and royalties on their net sales
Enterome, Nestlé enter research and development partnership. (Credit: Louis Reed on Unsplash)
Enterome and Nestlé Health Science have entered into a strategic collaboration and license agreement to develop drugs targeting food allergies and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Under the terms of the agreement, Enterome is eligible to receive an upfront payment of €40m in cash and equity from Nestlé Health Science.
It is also eligible to receive additional payments, based on achieving clinical and sales milestones for each licensed therapeutic candidate, and royalties on their net sales.
Enterome will lead the drug discovery activities and fund the associated expenses, up to the investigational new drug (IND) application.
Nestlé Health Science chief scientific and medical officer Hans-Juergen Woerle said: “Approximately 220 million people around the world live with food allergies, while seven million live with inflammatory bowel disease.
“Through this collaboration, we are aiming to develop novel therapies for these two disease areas with high unmet medical needs.
“We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Enterome on their unique microbiome drug discovery platform striving to develop first-in-class, high-quality treatment solutions that will help patients to live a healthier life.”
Enterome is engaged in developing novel immunomodulatory drugs leveraging its advanced bacterial mimicry drug discovery platform.
It has developed the mimicry drug discovery platform by understanding the mechanisms behind the interactions between the gut microbiome and the immune system.
The company is currently advancing two pipelines of drug candidates, dubbed OncoMimics against cancer, and EndoMimics against inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Under the new partnership with Nestlé Health Science, Enterome aims to develop and commercialise EB1010, the lead candidate in its EndoMimics pipeline.
EB1010 is designed to improve therapeutic outcomes for patients with food allergies and IBD and is anticipated to enter clinical trials in 2023.
In addition, the partnership will identify and create a pipeline of novel allergen immunotherapies for food allergies (AllerMimics) using Enterome’s Mimicry platform.
AllerMimics platform will initially focus on peanut allergens as the basis for developing a novel class of immunotherapies that aim to suppress allergic reactions.
In July 2017, Enterome and Nestlé Health Science established a new diagnostics company, dubbed Microbiome Diagnostics Partners (MDP).
MDP is a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies and focuses on the development of novel microbiome-based diagnostics for IBD and liver diseases.