Roche signs genetic chemistry technology deal
pharmafile | January 11, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | Evolva, Roche, genetic chemistry
Roche has signed a deal with Evolva Holding to create anti-infectives and cancer treatments using the latter’s genetic chemistry technology.
Roche’s interest in the proprietary discovery platform is a boost for fellow Swiss company Evolva, which will receive an upfront payment to access the technology as well as ongoing research fees.
Roche will then be responsible for taking forward any compounds discovered, while Evolva will have the first right to those that the pharma manufacturer does not want.
Roche will pay clinical milestone fees in addition to royalties on any products resulting from the partnership.
“The agreement with Roche represents another step forward in the development of our genetic chemistry technologies,” said Evolva chief executive Neil Goldsmith.
“By exploring biosynthetic scaffolds that have many of the ‘design features’ of nature we aim to build a pipeline of novel diverse compounds with anti-infective and anti-cancer effects.”
Evolva’s platform uses a ‘disruptive’ approach to the creation of novel small compounds, which the company says “differs sharply” from the pharma industry’s synthetic chemistry and protein engineering approaches.
Evolva quotes a recent review of 1,000 new chemical entities reaching market over the last 25 years of which around half are natural, nature-derived or inspired by a natural scaffold.
Although easy-to-harvest natural organisms have been “mined out”, the company says artificial biosynthetic – or genetic – chemistry can both create new compounds and ones that no longer exist.
Evolva has several discovery and pre-clinical partnerships based on the technology, which in 2008 generated revenues of CHF 12 million.
Current partners include the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with whom it works on discovering compounds that improve a human’s ability to resist infection by various pathogens.
It also has a small molecule discovery deal with Functional Genetics to find novel anti-virals.
Evolva’s own pipeline contains one compound for renal and cardiovascular diseases which entered phase I this month.
Two others – an anti-fungal and an anti-viral – are expected to enter phase I in 2010.
The company came into being last December following the merger of Arpida, which started in 1998, and Evolva, formed in 2004.
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