BOSTON– Orionis Biosciences has announced a major strategic partnership with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, to advance the discovery and development of a new class of cancer medicines based on molecular glue technology. The multi-year collaboration will focus on the use of Orionis’s proprietary Allo-Glue™ platform to create small-molecule monovalent glues that target previously intractable cancer-related proteins.
As part of the agreement, Orionis will receive an upfront payment of $105 million and stands to earn more than $2 billion in potential milestone payments tied to research, development, commercialization, and sales. The company is also eligible for tiered royalties on future sales of any resulting therapies. Orionis will lead early discovery and optimization, while Genentech will handle later-stage development, regulatory approvals, and commercialization efforts.
This marks the second partnership between the two companies. The first, launched in September 2023, targeted small-molecule medicines across various disease areas including oncology and neurodegeneration. The new collaboration is specifically focused on molecular glues—a promising class of therapies that work by inducing proximity between proteins, effectively “gluing” them together to alter their function or stability.
Orionis’s Allo-Glue™ platform integrates advanced chemical biology tools, engineered cellular assays, custom robotic automation, and a powerful AI-driven chemistry engine. The system is capable of generating and analyzing hundreds of millions of protein interaction events within cells, enabling rapid identification and optimization of new drug candidates with high potency, specificity, and synthetic viability.
“This expanded collaboration with Genentech demonstrates a shared commitment to exploring the full potential of induced proximity drug modalities, including molecular glues beyond targeted protein degraders,” said Niko Kley, Co-Founder and CEO of Orionis Biosciences. “It reflects the strong synergy between our teams and their remarkable progress over the past year.”
Riccardo Sabatini, Chief Data Scientist at Orionis, highlighted the technological foundation of the company’s approach. “We’ve created a unique discovery capability by fusing cellular sensing, automation, and AI. It’s an exciting moment in small-molecule development, and we’re confident in the potential of our platform to reprogram protein networks in ways that weren’t possible before.”
Boris L. Zaïtra, Head of Corporate Business Development at Roche, emphasized the therapeutic promise of the collaboration. “Molecular glues are a transformative modality that can engage disease-relevant proteins considered unreachable by conventional drugs. Partnering with Orionis allows us to expand our innovation pipeline and potentially bring novel, life-changing cancer therapies to patients.”
The collaboration underscores growing momentum behind molecular glue therapeutics, a field gaining traction as researchers seek to tackle diseases that have long resisted standard drug approaches. For Orionis and Genentech, the alliance reflects a broader strategy to push the boundaries of what small molecules can achieve in precision oncology.
