Blueprint Medicines in deal potentially worth more than $1 billion with Roche

US drug discovery firm Blueprint Medicines (Nasdaq: BPMC) has entered into a worldwide collaboration and exclusive license agreement with Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) for the discovery, development and commercialization of up to five small molecule therapeutics targeting kinases believed to be important in cancer immunotherapy.

Under the terms of the agreement, Blueprint Medicines will receive an upfront cash payment of $45 million and will be eligible to receive up to an additional approximately $965 million in contingent option fees and milestone payments related to specified research, preclinical, clinical, regulatory and sales-based milestones across all five potential programs.

Of the total contingent payments, up to around $215 million are for option fees and milestone payments for research, preclinical and clinical development events prior to licensing across all five potential programs. In addition, the agreement provides for specified royalties and cost sharing, which are described in more detail below.