Roche Pays $36.5M Upfront to Dualitas for 300,000-Combination Bispecific Antibody Hunt in Immunology
核心洞察
Roche will pay Dualitas Therapeutics (搜索) $36.5 million upfront under a research collaboration and license agreement to discover novel bispecific antibodies for immunology and inflammation diseases.
Dualitas will use its DualScreen Bispecific Discovery Engine to functionally screen more than 300,000 novel bispecific combinations, described as one of the largest-scale bispecific discovery endeavors.
The deal carries research, development and commercial milestone payments plus tiered royalties, for a potential total value of up to $1 billion, with Roche handling all later development.
Roche has committed $36.5 million in upfront payments to South San Francisco-based Dualitas Therapeutics (搜索) under a research collaboration and license agreement aimed at discovering novel bispecific antibodies for immunology and inflammation (I&I) diseases, the companies announced Thursday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Dualitas will use its DualScreen™ Bispecific Discovery Engine to functionally screen more than 300,000 novel bispecific combinations — an effort the company describes as one of the largest-scale bispecific discovery endeavors. Roche will be responsible for all subsequent preclinical development, regulatory, manufacturing and commercial activities.
Beyond the upfront payment, Dualitas is eligible to receive research, development and commercial milestone payments and tiered royalties, for a potential total deal value of up to $1 billion.
A Proximity Biology Approach to Bispecific Discovery
The collaboration leverages Dualitas' expertise in proximity biology to develop bispecific antibody (BsAb) candidates with synergistic activities that the company says are unattainable with conventional therapeutics.
Dualitas' bispecifics differ from traditional double-barreled antibodies, which lock onto targets on two different cells. Instead, the company's drugs use a specialized antibody arm called a "proximity engager" to force two proteins on the same cell close together, creating synergistic effects that would not otherwise occur.
The DualScreen™ engine is designed to enable high-throughput discovery of proximity biology and novel bispecifics that can be rapidly optimized into differentiated drug candidates. Whereas traditional BsAb approaches narrowly focus on pre-determined target pairs to realize incremental gains, DualScreen™ functionally screens entire cell surfaces, interrogating the proximity biology of hundreds of thousands of unique bispecific combinations across a vast range of targets and epitopes.
"We are thrilled to partner with Roche on this first-of-its-kind collaboration to functionally screen and develop novel proximity BsAbs at a scale that was previously unachievable," said Forbes Huang, co-founder, chief operating officer and chief business officer of Dualitas. "Since founding Dualitas in 2023, we have established our DualScreen™ discovery engine as the premier technology for discovering next-generation proximity BsAbs, as exemplified by our robust therapeutic pipeline entering clinic next year for I&I diseases."
Huang told BioPharma Dive that the screening technology is unique in its ability to sift through large quantities of potential drug combinations and compare them to approved medications and monoclonal antibodies in testing. "Our discovery engine is able to detect those novel combinations that have differentiated activity," he wrote in an email.
Deal Structure Leaves Room for Dualitas to Reclaim Passed Programs
Roche can choose a "limited number" of programs to advance, Huang said. Any programs the Swiss pharmaceutical giant skips over could be developed by Dualitas at a later date.
"Bispecific antibodies remain central to Roche's portfolio strategy across many disease areas," said Boris L. Zaïtra, Head of Corporate Business Development at Roche. "We are committed to continue pushing the boundaries of scientific innovation in immunology and inflammation diseases that will ultimately benefit patients through external partnerships."
Roche already markets several bispecific antibodies, including the hemophilia A (搜索) drug Hemlibra, the eye medicine Vabysmo and the cancer treatments Lunsumio and Columvi. The Dualitas deal adds to its arsenal of experimental dual-pronged antibodies for immune conditions, an increasingly popular area of drug research.
"This collaboration with Roche underscores the enormous potential of Dualitas' technologies to identify BsAbs that harness novel proximity mechanisms that may deliver truly differentiated results to patients," said Karim Dabbagh, Ph.D., CEO and board member of Dualitas. "Our internal pipeline of proximity engager BsAbs has already demonstrated the ability to drive amplified therapeutic effects that push the boundary of what conventional antibody therapies can achieve. This collaboration extends our therapeutic innovations while we continue to develop our internal pipeline."
Dualitas' Internal Pipeline Advances in Parallel
Dualitas is advancing three of its own bispecific antibodies. The furthest ahead is DTX-102 (搜索), a development candidate for rheumatoid arthritis (搜索) that is expected to enter the clinic in 2027, according to the company. The other two programs — DTX-103 (搜索) in allergic disease and DTX-101 in dermatologic and gastrointestinal autoimmune disease — could be tested in allergy, asthma, skin conditions and gastrointestinal disorders.
"Each program has demonstrated preclinically the ability to elicit unique and differentiated activity that even commercial and clinical benchmarks cannot achieve, when compared head-to-head," Huang wrote.
Dualitas launched in 2023 with $65 million from a group of investors led by Qiming Venture Partners (搜索) and Versant Ventures (搜索). The company's portfolio, built from the DualScreen™ discovery engine, includes the three development candidates alongside additional discoveries based on cell-surface proximity biology and novel co-target pairing. While advancing its own pipeline, Dualitas offers strategic collaboration opportunities ranging from existing pipeline programs to identifying de novo BsAbs and establishing programs in disease areas beyond I&I.