Parvus, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing disease-specific immunoregulatory medicines to treat autoimmune diseases that maintain normal immunity, will work with Genentech in this collaboration.
Together, the companies will collaborate to develop, manufacture, and commercialize Navacim therapies for inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune liver disease, and celiac disease.
A spokesperson for Parvus told us that its Navacim platform can generate therapeutic candidates that may be able to treat, and possibly reverse, a wide range of autoimmune diseases ‘without dampening’ the immune system.
“Navacims are precision medicines designed to trigger a naturally occurring immunoregulatory mechanism of the mammalian immune system that has evolved to protect against autoimmune disease. Navacim activity depends on the presence of disease-causing, autoimmune T cells,” the spokesperson told us.
The spokesperson added that this collaboration is beneficial as it “cannot develop all [its] assets alone,” and will provide the company with funding to expand its portfolio of Navacim drug candidates on its own at a later date.
Genentech, a member of the Roche group, eligible to receive research, development, and commercialization milestone payments totally up to $800m (€716m). Parvus is also eligible to receive certain milestone payments in other disease areas.
Parvus will conduct pre-clinical and clinical development activities through Phase I. Genentech will be responsible for development from Phase II on, including regulatory submissions and commercialization.