Roche, Jnana Therapeutics Enter Second Drug Discovery Alliance

Jnana Therapeutics, a biotechnology company leveraging its next-gen chemoproteomics platform to discover medicines for challenging-to-drug targets, has entered into a second collaboration and license agreement with Roche for the discovery of small molecule drugs for the treatment of cancer, immune-mediated and neurological diseases. The collaboration covers multiple targets from a range of target classes to address diseases with high unmet need.
 
Jnana will receive $50 million upfront, near-term milestone payments, and additional potential future payments that could exceed $2 billion, as well as royalties. Jnana will conduct discovery and preclinical activities against multiple cancer, immune-mediated and neurological disease targets, and Roche will be responsible for development and commercialization of any resulting products.
 
“We are excited to partner with Roche, one of the largest healthcare companies and a strong collaborator, for a second time,” said Joanne Kotz, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Jnana Therapeutics.  “Roche has been a valuable strategic partner and we are proud that our success to date has led to the opportunity to broaden our work together in immune-mediated and neurological diseases, as well as to extend our collaboration into cancer.”
 
“We have been impressed by Jnana’s team and their RAPID drug discovery platform, as part of our first collaboration that focused on SLC metabolite transporters,” said James Sabry, Global Head of Roche Pharma Partnering. “As fostering truly symbiotic partnerships with our partners where we learn and grow together is a key focus of our overall partnering strategy, we are excited to now build on our successful existing collaboration with Jnana to address new target classes as we expand our efforts to discover new medicines for patients with cancer, immune and neurological diseases.”