Roche Inks Deal That Could Exceed $1.8 Billion with Flare Therapeutics

Cambridge, MA–based biotech Flare Therapeutics will collaborate with Roche to develop cancer therapeutics that target transcription factors. Roche will pay Flare $70 million in cash up front—and financial awards that could exceed $1.8 billion if certain development milestones are reached—plus royalties. Under the partnership Flare will share its proteomics and mass spectrometry platform and its library of electrophiles, which enable the identification of druggable regions within cancer-related transcription factors.  For example, Flare’s lead candidate, FX-909, under evaluation in a phase I trial, inhibits a transcription factor implicated in urothelial carcinoma; the biotech will maintain ownership of the drug along with the rest of its existing pipeline.