Innovent and Roche Enter into A Strategic Collaboration

Innovent Biologics, Inc. announced a strategic research and development collaboration with Roche covering multiple cell therapies and bispecific antibodies.

The collaboration will focus on the discovery, clinical development and commercialization of bispecific antibodies and multiple cell therapies and will be directed to the treatment of hematological and solid cancers.

Under the terms of the agreement, Innovent will pay upfront, development and commercial milestone payments, and royalties, to non-exclusively access certain Roche technologies that enable the discovery and development of specific 2:1 T-cell bispecific antibodies (TCB) and the universal CAR-T platform. Innovent will create, develop, manufacture, and commercialize the products. Roche retains an option right to license each product for ex-China development and commercialization. Should Roche exercise all of its options, it will pay option exercise payments totaling $140 million plus additional development, approval, and sales milestone payments up to $1.96 billion if all products are successfully developed and commercialized. Additionally, Roche will pay double-digit up to mid teen percentage royalties on each product.

Dr. Michael Yu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Innovent Biologics commented, “Innovent first entered the cellular therapy space a few years ago, and with this partnership with Roche we are taking a much bolder step forward as we build upon Roche’s novel, universal CAR-T cell technology to enhance our cellular therapy discovery platform, and on Roche’s 2:1 T-cell bispecific antibody platform for selected targets to discover, develop, and commercialize new proprietary bispecific molecules. We are excited about working together as we rapidly advance these technologies to proof of concept stage in China, with Roche retaining an ex-China licensing option to carry the Ex-China development forward thereafter, potentially benefiting patients globally.”