Roche Holdings Ltd. (RHHBY) recently announced that it entered into a collaboration agreement with Aileron Therapeutics Inc. for the discovery, development and commercialization of Stapled Peptide Therapeutics. Stapled Peptide Therapeutics, a new class of drugs, was discovered as a result of Aileron’s breakthrough peptide stabilization technology.
The companies plan to work together to develop potential treatments for up to five undisclosed targets selected from Roche’s key therapeutic areas. These include oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and central nervous system.
As per the terms of the deal, Roche will make a payment of at least $25 million to Aileron for using its technology and towards research and development support. Aileron is also eligible to receive milestones payments of up to $1.1 billion on the achievement of certain pre-defined targets. Moreover, it will receive royalties on sales of marketed products developed under this alliance. Both the companies will be responsible for the clinical development of the potential drug candidates against the selected targets.
Aileron Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that develops a class of drugs called Stapled Peptides. Aileron’s pipeline consists of therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, infectious disease, metabolic disease and immune/inflammatory diseases.
We currently have a Zacks #3 Rank (short-term Hold rating) on Roche. We view the agreement with Aileron as strategically sound for Roche and believe that it is an important step toward Roche’s ultimate goal of bringing new treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.
