Arrakis Therapeutics inks $190 million upfront RNA drug deal with pharma giant

Announcing its first partnership, US biotech start-up Arrakis Therapeutics says it has entered a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) for the discovery of RNA-targeted small molecule (rSM) drugs against a broad set of targets across all of Roche’s research and development areas.

Under the terms of the accord, Arrakis will lead discovery and research activities for each target to a defined point, at which time Roche will have the right to exclusively pursue further pre-clinical and clinical development.

Arrakis will receive an upfront $190 million in cash and is eligible for preclinical, clinical, commercial and sales milestone payments and royalties for any resulting products. The aggregate potential value of future payments to Arrakis exceeds several billion dollars, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions being met, the US firm noted.