Boehringer, Ochre Bio enter $1B pact to tackle chronic liver diseases
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Boehringer Ingelheim has entered into a potential $1 billion multi-year partnership with Ochre Bio to develop regenerative treatments for chronic liver diseases, including late-stage metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) cirrhosis. Søren Tullin, global head of cardiometabolic diseases research at Boehringer, said in a statement Monday that Ochre "brings to the table unique and exciting capabilities in liver disease research."
The partnership centres on Ochre's discovery platform, which combines machine learning with big data, including advanced imaging and deep genomic phenotyping, as well as in-house RNA chemistry and ex vivo human-organ perfusion models, to identify and understand new regenerative targets for chronic liver diseases. The goal is to develop treatments that can modulate these targets and enhance the liver's self-repair capabilities, potentially preventing or even reversing disease progression.
As part of the multi-target collaboration, Ochre will receive up to $35 million in upfront, plus near-term research-based milestone payments. It is also eligible for milestones tied to clinical, regulatory, and commercial success as well as tiered royalties, pushing the deal's overall value potentially over $1 billion.
A 'nudge' to help regeneration
The UK biotech raised $30 million in a series A round in 2022. Its work to date has involved analysing thousands of donated human livers to better understand the causes of disease, and exploring if changes to RNA can extend the lifespan of transplanted livers.
"What we're trying to do is give the liver a little nudge in the right direction to support it to regenerate," according to Ochre’s chief scientific officer Quin Wills. Cells in a cirrhotic liver, for example, have lost a decision-making process that would enable them to start dividing and restore capacity. Wills says that "by changing certain 'switches' using these RNA therapies, we help them make those decisions again."
Deeper push into liver disease
Meanwhile, the partnership builds on Boehringer's continuing push to develop treatments for interconnected cardiometabolic diseases. In February, the company reported promising Phase II results for survodutide, an experimental glucagon/GLP-1 receptor dual agonistGLP-1 receptor dual agonist being co-developed with Zealand Pharma. Up to 83% of MASH patients treated with survodutide achieved significant histological improvement without worsening fibrosis, compared to only 18.2% for placebo.
Survodutide's response rate in the trial was "very impressive," commented Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, in an interview with FirstWord earlier this year, as was the drug's definitive impact on fibrosis. Drucker suggested the results were at least as strong as those for other incretin-based therapies, including liraglutide and semaglutide.
Boehringer also has other deals in the space. It kicked off the year with a pact potentially worth more than $2 billion to use Suzhou Ribo Life Science's siRNA liver-targeting delivery technology to develop RNA-based therapeutics for MASH. Prior to that it had explored RNAi's potential to treat MASH through partnerships with MiNA Therapeutics and Dicerna Pharmaceuticals.
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