Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd.

Roche’s Genentech unit and Repertoire Immune Medicines have entered into a partnership worth $765m to discover and develop T cell-targeted immune medicines for an undisclosed autoimmune disease. The collaboration and licence agreement centres around Repertoire’s DECODE platform, which will be used to generate target discoveries that Genentech will further optimise and translate into new drugs. Autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, affect more than 50 million people in the US. They occur when the immune system is unable to distinguish between healthy cells and invading pathogens. Repertoire’s platform is designed to map the immune synapse, offering a comprehensive overview of the interactions between T cell receptors and their cognate antigenic epitopes. Boris Zaïtra, head of Roche corporate business development, said: “As we seek new opportunities to bring an even greater impact to patients, we look forward to translating the new discoveries DECODE and the team at Repertoire will reveal to develop novel medicines for patients suffering from autoimmune diseases.” Under the terms of the agreement, Repertoire will lead target discovery activities using its platform, while Genentech will take on responsibility for preclinical and clinical development, as well as global commercialisation of therapies that utilising the target discovery work. In exchange, the Flagship Pioneering-founded biotech will be eligible to receive $35m upfront and up to $730m in development, regulatory and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties. “The enormous breadth of DECODE’s therapeutic target discovery potential is well beyond what we could realise on our own,” said Torben Straight Nissen, chairman and chief executive officer of Repertoire, and executive partner at Flagship Pioneering. “Given Genentech’s commitment and experience… in developing treatments for autoimmune diseases, we are delighted to partner with them to bring medicines to patients that reset the immune system and have the potential to provide significant therapeutic benefits,” he added. The collaboration comes just one month after Roche entered into a partnership worth over $1bn with Oxford BioTherapeutics to discover new antibody-based therapeutics for cancer. Roche also announced an exclusive collaboration and licensing agreement with Zealand Pharma in March to advance Zealand’s mid-stage obesity candidate petrelintide, and gained exclusive global rights to Innovent Biologics’ DLL3-targeted antibody drug conjugate candidate in January.

Boehringer expands oncology pipeline with Tessellate deal. Credit: Sundry Photography via Getty Images. Boehringer Ingelheim has signed a €500m ($572m) agreement with UK-based biotech Tessellate Bio to co-develop targeted cancer therapies for tumours that rely on the alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) mechanism – a lesser-known telomere maintenance process that supports the survival of certain hard to treat cancers. Under the terms of the deal, Tessellate Bio will receive an upfront licensing fee, research funding, and technical milestone payments, along with additional success-based development and commercial milestones. The total potential value of the agreement is more than $572m. Tessellate has developed small molecule inhibitors against an undisclosed target that plays a central role in enabling the replication and survival of ALT-positive cancer cells. According to the company, preclinical data shows that blocking this target leads to DNA damage and replication stress, selectively killing tumour cells dependent on the ALT mechanism while sparing healthy cells that do not use this pathway. The collaboration builds on Tessellate’s ongoing work to characterise ALT activity across tumour types, following a research initiative launched in September 2024 with Australian research institutes CMRI and Omico. Tessellate secured €8m in seed funding from BioGeneration Ventures and Forbion when it launched publicly in October 2023. This deal with Boehringer marks Tessellate’s first partnership with a biopharma company. For Boehringer, this deal aligns with its strategic expansion in oncology. Over the last few years, the German pharma company has pursued a series of R&D and licensing agreements to strengthen its cancer portfolio. In October 2024, it partnered with Circle Pharma to co-develop a first-in-class cyclin inhibitor, in a deal worth up to $607m in upfront and milestone payments. That same month, it opened a €60m ($66.8m) research building in Vienna, Austria , focused on advancing novel cancer therapies. Boehringer’s marketed oncology products include Giotrif (afatinib) for EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and Vargatef (nintedanib) for specific types of lung cancer. The company is also advancing late-stage assets such as brigimadlin, an MDM2-p53 antagonist in a pivotal clinical trial for rare cancer dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLPS). Boehringer is also advancing zongertinib , a tyrosine kinase inhibitor being evaluated as a potential treatment for HER2-mutated NSCLC. GlobalData Strategic Intelligence US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate? Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis. By GlobalData Learn more about Strategic Intelligence In January 2025, Boehringer signed two further licensing agreements to deepen its pipeline. The first, with Synaffix, grants access to the company’s antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) platform in a deal worth up to $1.3bn , covering multiple undisclosed targets. The second was an extension of a long-standing partnership with Oxford BioTherapeutics, under which Boehringer exercised an option for a fourth novel target. Oxford BioTherapeutics will receive development milestones and royalties, while Boehringer takes over full development and commercial responsibilities.

iStock, Mininyx Doodle At the heart of the licensing deal is CUE-501, a bispecific molecule that can selectively deplete B cells to address autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. Boehringer Ingelheim is fronting $12 million to license Cue Biopharma’s investigational B cell depletion therapy for autoimmune diseases, the German biopharma announced on Monday. The star of this back-heavy, multi-year deal is Cue’s CUE-501, a preclinical bispecific molecule that works by binding to a specific protein found on the surface of B cells. At the same time, CUE-501 also engages and activates a specific subset of killer T cells, selectively depleting B cells to suppress autoimmunity and inflammation. According to the biotech’s website , CUE-501 sidesteps the systemic activation of all T cells, which “may offer significant advantages over current cell therapy-based strategies.” For the right to develop and commercialize CUE-501, Boehringer Ingelheim is pledging up to $345 million in research, development and commercial milestones, on top of the $12 million upfront payment. Cue will also be entitled to royalties on net sales of CUE-501. In exchange for this investment, Cue will leverage its platform technologies to further develop CUE-501. Both parties may also expand the partnership to include other anti-B cell bispecifics for autoimmune indications, according to Monday’s release. Carine Boustany, Boehringer Ingelheim’s global head of Immunology and Respiratory Disease Research, said in a statement that Monday’s licensing deal is a “strategic expansion” of the company’s portfolio in the autoimmune and inflammatory space, allowing it to “deliver a more effective treatment option to patients earlier in their disease journey.” Boehringer’s immunology and inflammatory portfolio is anchored by the oral kinase inhibitor Ofev, indicated for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In 2024, sales of Ofev jumped 7% to rake in approximately $4.26 billion. Meanwhile, the pharma’s asthma drug Spiriva remained one of its top sellers, with more than $1.8 billion in sales last year, despite dipping roughly 17% from the previous year. Additionally, in September 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim reported that its drug candidate nerandomilast aced the Phase III FIBRONEER-IPF study, showing significant lung function benefits in patients with IPF. At the time, the pharma revealed plans to approval application for the drug in this indication, though a specific timeline was not provided. Beyond I&I, Boehringer Ingelheim has also signed several deals in the past year. In January, the pharma entered two antibody-focused partnerships —one with Lonza’s Synaffix and another with Oxford BioTherapeutics—in oncology. In July 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim dropped $1.3 billion to acquire Nerio Therapeutics and its small molecule assets that can “reshape” the immune system to target tumors.