Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics spun out of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, has entered into a multi-year strategic collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, to discover, develop and commercialize biomarkers, targets and medicines for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Under the terms of the agreement, Microbiotica will utilize its precision metagenomics microbiome platform to analyze patient samples from clinical trials of Genentech’s investigational IBD medicines, in order to identify microbiome biomarker signatures of drug response, novel IBD drug targets and live bacterial therapeutic products. Microbiotica will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and is eligible to receive research, development and commercialization milestone payments up to $534 million based on achievement of certain predetermined milestones. In addition, Microbiotica is eligible to receive royalties on sales of certain products resulting from the collaboration. Genentech also has an option to license assets that Microbiotica develops as a result of the research collaboration.

Dr Mike Romanos, chief executive officer of Microbiotica, said, “This collaboration brings together a world-class pipeline of investigational IBD medicines from Genentech with the world-class microbiome capability of Microbiotica. We are excited by the opportunity to work with Genentech scientists in order to bring precision metagenomics into the clinical arena for the first time, enabling us to develop biomarkers and medicines for the benefit of patients.”

James Sabry, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president and global head of Genentech Partnering, said, “We believe the microbiome represents a new paradigm in biomedicine, both for understanding drug response and as a novel therapeutic modality. We have chosen to collaborate with Microbiotica because of its high-quality science and look forward to working together to potentially bring new medicines to people suffering from IBD.”