Roche has signed a strategic research collaboration with Atavistik Bio potentially worth up to $2bn to discover and develop novel allosteric small-molecule therapies for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic (CVRM) diseases.
Under the agreement, announced yesterday, Atavistik will receive $70m upfront and is eligible for up to $1.9bn in research, development and commercial milestone payments, alongside tiered royalties on future net sales of approved medicines.
The partnership will use Atavistik’s proprietary AMPS (Atavistik Metabolite-Protein Screening) platform to identify previously unrecognised functional binding pockets on disease-associated proteins.
Rather than targeting a protein’s primary active site, allosteric drugs bind to alternative sites that can regulate protein function.
Atavistik says its approach is designed to uncover “cryptic” binding pockets and enable selective small molecules against targets that have historically been difficult to modulate.
Atavistik will lead discovery and research activities for the collaboration targets, while Roche will take responsibility for preclinical and clinical development, regulatory activities and commercialisation.
The agreement comes as Roche expands its focus on CVRM drug development.
The company opened a new Roche Genentech Innovation Center in Boston in September, bringing together cardiovascular, renal and metabolic research alongside data science and AI capabilities.
Roche's CVRM strategy already includes programmes spanning obesity, hypertension and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), including collaborations with Alnylam and Zealand Pharma and its acquisitions of Carmot Therapeutics and 89bio.
For Atavistik, the collaboration adds a new therapeutic focus beyond its internal rare-haematology pipeline.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech is developing ATV-1601, an oral allosteric AKT1-selective inhibitor for hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia, alongside a JAK2V617F mutant-selective programme for myeloproliferative neoplasms.
The companies have not disclosed how many targets the Roche collaboration covers or its development timelines.
