Roche Holding AG's California-based unit Genentech Inc. entered into a collaboration worth up to $534 million with Microbiotica, a spinout from the U.K.'s Wellcome Sanger Institute, to develop and commercialize biomarkers, targets and drugs for inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD.
Under terms of the multiyear deal, Cambridge, England-based Microbiotica will use its microbiome platform to analyze patient samples taken from Genentech's clinical trials of experimental medicines for IBD, so as to identify new targets, microbiome biomarker signatures of drug response and devise live bacterial treatments for the condition, which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
In addition to the possible research, development and commercialization milestone payments, privately held Microbiotica could receive royalties on sales of certain products resulting from the collaboration. Established in 2016 with funding from IP Group and Cambridge Innovation Capital, Microbiotica uses artificial intelligence techniques to precisely identify gut bacteria on a scale large enough to be able to deal with clinical trial data. Founded from the laboratory for Trevor Lawley, chief science officer of Microbiotica, the company aims to develop and commercialize research into the role of the microbiome in disease and health.
"We believe the microbiome represents a new paradigm in biomedicine, both for understanding drug response and as a novel therapeutic modality," James Sabry, global head of Genentech partnering, said in the news release. "We have chosen to collaborate with Microbiotica because of its high-quality science and look forward to working together to potentially bring new medicines to people suffering from IBD."
In 2015, an estimated 3 million people, or 1.3% of the adult population, was diagnosed with IBD in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This compares with only 2 million diagnosed in 1999. Symptoms of IBD, which is caused by a defective immune system resulting in chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, include persistent diarrhea, rectal bleeding, weight loss, abdominal pain and fatigue.
