Lead and Roche will work together in research activities pertaining selection of a pre-clinical candidate for immune mediated diseases
Lead Pharma, Roche enter into R&D collaboration. (Credit: Adam Radosavljevic from Pixabay.)
Lead Pharma has entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Roche to develop oral small molecules for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases.
As part of the single target research collaboration, Lead and Roche will work together in research activities pertaining to the selection of a pre-clinical candidate, followed by further development and global commercialisation by Roche alone.
Pursuant to the terms of the collaboration agreement, Lead Pharma will receive an upfront payment of €10m and is entitled to receive research funding and milestone payments.
The total payments including research, development, regulatory and sales milestones are expected to amount up to €260m on an average, in addition to royalties on worldwide sales.
Roche pharma partnering global Head James Sabry said: “We are committed to advancing innovative science and transformative medicines for people affected by different immune-mediated diseases. We are looking forward to further building on our expertise in this field and collaborating with Lead Pharma, aiming to make a difference for those patients.”
The Netherlands-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical firm is focused on the discovery and development of advanced medicines for the treatment of immune diseases and cancer.
Lead Pharma has fully equipped labs for all stages of drug discovery, including medicinal chemistry, cellular pharmacology, and molecular pharmacology, along with an ‘in silico’ lab for our computational chemistry, bioinformatics, and data mining activities.
Lead Pharma chief executive officer Frans van den Berg said: “Our ambition is to develop life-changing treatments for patients. We are delighted to team up with Roche to pursue this goal. Partnering is a key element of our strategy, this collaboration is yet another validation of the value of Lead Pharma’s innovation power.”
Lead Pharma chief scientific officer Arthur Oubrie said: “This is the second project we partner with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies under our Discover, Design and Deliver platform.
“Our rigorous target selection process, translational screening cascade, and smart medicinal chemistry have been essential to bring this project to this stage. We are keen to collaborate with our colleagues at Roche to bring this novel approach to patients.”