Big pharma company GSK and UK AI-biotech Relation Therapeutics have entered into two strategic collaborations to identify and validate new therapeutic targets for osteoarthritis and fibrotic diseases.
Under the terms of the two agreements, GSK will make an upfront payment of $45 million to Relation, including an equity investment of $15 million. Moreover, Relation can receive payments measured by success of up to $63 million, and potential milestone payments worth approximately $200 million per target, as well as royalties on the sales of potential products. GSK will retain all worldwide development and commercialization rights to any targets resulting from the collaboration.
Fibrotic diseases – where tissue thickens or scars in vital organs – include cirrhosis, scleroderma, kidney disease, and fibrosis of the heart or lungs. Research shows that almost 18% of all global deaths (excluding cancer) are caused by fibrotic diseases.
Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint condition, is also a debilitating disease that affects over 500 million people globally, 60% of affected individuals are female. Both fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis are areas of great unmet medical need, even though they affect millions of people worldwide.
“These diseases have few treatments that address their root causes,” explained David Roblin, CEO of Relation Therapeutics, in a press release. “Our approach of generating data directly from patient tissue allows us to build a comprehensive picture of the underlying human disease biology at scale. This, combined with our deployment of machine learning, enables us to make unprecedented inferences about how to effectively intervene in disease processes.”
As part of the agreement with GSK, Relation will organize observational studies to generate two functional disease data sets– in several undisclosed fibrotic conditions and osteoarthritis. Using Relation’s proprietary Lab-in-the-Loop platform, these data sets will be analyzed by integrating human genetic information from patient tissue and machine learning to aid the discovery of new disease targets. This deep dive enables a robust validation of targets before they enter the clinic, thereby lowering the risk of clinical failure.
“By combining Relation’s patient-centric discovery platform with GSK’s global scale and expertise, we have the potential to accelerate the development of transformative medicines for patients who have long awaited new therapies,” said Roblin.
Kaivan Khavandi, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Respiratory and Immunology R&D at GSK added: “Working with Relation enables us to gain deep and precise insights into human causal biology and apply these to therapeutic discovery through a data-driven approach, supported by Relation’s proprietary platform.”
“The resulting targets will be supported by robust translational packages, which will, in turn, provide clarity on deployment in early clinical evaluation, ultimately supporting our broader portfolio ambition to develop new medicines for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis – where there remains significant unmet medical need.”
