Bicycle and Genentech Forge Immuno-Oncology Collaboration Worth up to $1.7 Billion

Shares of U.K.-based Bicycle Therapeutics are climbing this morning after the company announced it entered into a strategic immuno-oncology collaboration with Genentech to discover, develop and commercialize novel Bicycle-based immuno-oncology therapies. The collaboration has a value of up to $1.7 billion if all milestones are hit. Under terms of the agreement, Bicycle will receive an upfront payment of $30 million to focus its proprietary bicyclic peptides platform on a wide range of immuno-oncology targets. The U.K. company’s proprietary discovery platform allows for rapid screening of novel targets to identify Bicycles and the ability to readily conjugate these together to create novel molecules that may overcome the potential limitations of other modalities. Bicycles are fully synthetic short peptides constrained with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint facilitates target binding with high affinity and selectivity, which makes Bicycles attractive candidates for drug development, the company said.