TOKYO: Sosei Group Corporation announced that it has been notified by its partner Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, of its desire to nominate a new G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) disease target, which has triggered a US$3 million payment to Sosei Heptares.
Sosei Heptares and Genentech entered into their collaboration and license agreement in July 2019 to combine the proprietary GPCR-focused structure-based drug design capabilities at Sosei Heptares with Genentech’s discovery, development and therapeutic area expertise directed towards multiple GPCR targets nominated by Genentech.
The nominated targets represent promising new therapeutic intervention points across a range of diseases. Genentech will be responsible for developing and commercializing potential new medicines for each novel target and will have exclusive global rights to these agents.
The US$3 million payment was included in the US$26 million in upfront and near-term payments noted by Sosei Heptares in its announcement on the signing of the collaboration and license agreement.
Sosei Heptares is also eligible to receive future milestone payments from Genentech that may exceed US$1 billion for achieving pre-specified research, development and commercialization events. In addition, the Company is eligible to receive royalty payments on the net sales of potential future medicines resulting from the collaboration.
Dr. Malcolm Weir, Executive Vice President and Chief R&D Officer of Sosei Heptares, said: “We are delighted that our collaboration with Genentech has rapidly nominated an additional GPCR disease target. This is a great example of how we can leverage our world leading GPCR expertise to quickly develop productive working relationships with our partners to deliver on key project milestones. We look forward to advancing this important collaboration as we capitalise on our complementary expertise to generate potential new drug candidates to GPCR disease targets.”