Blueprint Meds out-licenses pralsetinib for $775 million upfront

US precision cancer therapy specialist Blueprint Medicines (Nasdaq: BPMC), whose shares were up 20% at $92.00 pre-market today, has entered into a global collaboration with Swiss giant Roche (ROG: SIX) and its subsidiary Genentech, worth a potential $1.7 billion. The US firm’s shares fell back by mid-morning

The deal covers the development and commercialization of pralsetinib, an investigational once-daily oral precision therapy for the treatment of people with cancer driven by oncogenic RET alterations, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), other thyroid cancers and other solid tumors.

Under the collaboration, Blueprint Medicines and Genentech will co-commercialize pralsetinib in the USA and Roche will obtain exclusive commercialization rights for pralsetinib outside of the USA, excluding Greater China. The companies also plan to expand development of pralsetinib in multiple treatment settings and explore development of a next-generation RET inhibitor as part of this collaboration.