Bayer & NextRNA Partner In $547Million Cancer Therapy Deal

This summer, Bayer officials made sure Fierce understood that the company’s desire for deals hasn’t been stifled by a group-wide reorganization. Its most recent partnership aimed at treating cancer indicates that Bayer has, in fact, not lost interest in novel and exciting approaches.

An agreement for over half a billion biobucks was inked by the firm and NextRNA Therapeutics, a biotech startup focused on long noncoding RNA (lncRNA)-driven disorders, to collaborate on two projects. The firms said in an Aug. 28 statement that the partnership would concentrate on cancer indications with a high unmet need.

If both of these projects are successful in reaching the market, NextRNA will receive a total of $547 million in milestone payments—including upfront and near-term payments, research and development funds, and commercial milestone payments—in addition to tiered royalties on net sales.

Limited information is available, although the firms did disclose that one of the projects involves a small chemical that targets lncRNA and is now in the early stages of preclinical research at NextRNA. The second initiative will focus on a target that Bayer chooses from a variety of possibilities that NextRNA’s technology has previously identified.

The biotech advertises this platform as combining deep lncRNA biology expertise and a diverse set of biochemical, biophysics, and chemistry capabilities with NextRNA’s computational engine, NextMap.

Carl Novina, M.D., Ph.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, whose lab generated many discoveries into the biology of noncoding RNAs and their dysregulation in malignancies, was one of the people that formed NextRNA in 2021.

Through this partnership, businesses looking to create transformational small molecule treatments across disease areas may trust that NextRNA is a pioneer in this field and that lncRNAs are an intriguing target class. The CEO and co-founder of NextRNA, Dominique Verhelle, Ph.D., said in a press statement this morning.

While continuing to build their pipeline in oncology and neuroscience, they look forward to working closely with the Bayer team to advance first-in-class cancer therapies, Verhelle said.

The technology of the Boston-based startup is intended to prevent lncRNAs from functioning by interfering with their interaction with tiny molecules, which is how lncRNAs and RBPs interact. According to the firms, the goal is to open up a vast class of novel therapies.

Head of business development and licensing at Bayer’s Pharmaceuticals division Juergen Eckhardt, M.D., said in the announcement, They aim to advance novel small molecule therapeutics against a new class of targets in oncology with NextRNA’s exceptional expertise and lncRNA platform. This collaboration contributes even more to our goal of creating one of the industry’s most innovative and diverse oncology pipelines.

The partnership was announced two months after Bayer CEO Eckhardt told Fierce that the business wants to continue being an innovation powerhouse despite thousands of layoffs.

In the June interview, Eckhardt said, Oncology is one of our key focus areas; they’re also constantly out there in the market, checking what would be a good fit for them.