Roche Snaps Up Irish Biotech firm Inflazome for $449 Million

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Swiss drug major Roche (Basel, Switzerland) has agreed to pay 380 million euro ($449 million) for Irish biotech company Inflazome (Dublin, Ireland) as it expands its portfolio of NLRP3 inhibitors for inflammatory diseases.

Inflazome, which was only founded in 2016, is an inflammasome company developing orally available NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors to address clinical unmet needs across a wide variety of inflammatory diseases. Inflammasomes are believed to drive many chronic inflammatory conditions, from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's to asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, arthritis and NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis). The company has a portfolio of orally available small molecule NLRP3 inhibitors with two drugs in clinical trials: Somalix, for a wide range of bodily inflammatory diseases and Inzomelid, for neurodegenerative diseases in the brain.

Matt Cooper, chief executive officer of Inflazome, commented: "We are delighted to close this deal with Roche, an outstanding pharmaceutical company with a broad commitment to multiple indications. With Inflazome now part of the Roche organization, Inflazome's pioneering molecules are well positioned to be developed quickly and effectively so they can help patients suffering from debilitating diseases." The deal also includes potential additional milestone payments depending on the success of the drugs throughout the trial process.

Roche's Genentech business unit bought its first NLRP-3 company in 2018 with the acquisition of San Diego-based biotech company Jecure for an undisclosed sum. The deal gave it access to Jecure's preclinical portfolio of NLRP-3 class drugs used to treat inflammatory and autoimmune disorders such as NASH, liver fibrosis, gout, inflammatory bowel disease and cardiovascular diseases.

In July, Roche's Genentech also agreed to a global, exclusive licence agreement with Belgian company UCB to develop and commercialise an antibody treatment, UCB0107, for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

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