Massachusetts-based Orionis Biosciences has flown under the radar since its founding in 2015, has leaped into the mainstream this morning with a major four-year drug discovery collaboration with Swiss pharma giant Novartis.
The two companies forged a collaboration to discover and design novel small molecule therapeutics, such as protein degraders, across various therapeutic areas. Novartis will leverage Orionis’ Allo-Glue technology platform. The molecules in the Allo-Glue platform enable access to targets previously thought unapproachable, the company said. The molecules in the platform are a unique class of allosterically acting small molecules, Orionis noted.
“They act to alter the form and function of, and thereby reprogram, intracellular proteins to engage in molecular interactions that modulate disease target proteins, including promoting their degradation by a cell’s natural protein disposal machinery,” said Orionis, which also has a site in Belgium.
Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed, but Orionis said the terms include research funding, a convertible note investment, royalties and potential clinical milestones.
Nike Kley, founder and chief executive officer of Orionis, which was named for the Orion star system, said the collaboration with Novartis “provides tremendous validation of the work we have accomplished over the past several years to develop innovative tools to unlock challenging drug targets for new therapeutic modalities.” Kley said there are numerous disease-related targets that so far have eluded researchers and drug developers for years.
“Our proprietary genome-wide discovery and drug design technologies may enable identification and development of small molecules and biologics with high specificity and selectivity against targets at a scale, speed and efficiency that is unique in the industry,” Kley said in a statement.
According to Orionis data, the company’s pipeline is designed to target multiple phases of the Cancer Immunity Cycle (CIC) to promote immune system-mediated clearance of and immunity to cancer. The company notes that its approach to tackling disease involves the “removal of various cancer-imposed brakes on components of the immune system, as well as targeted activation of and enhancement of infiltration of tumors by cancer-inhibitory immune cells, such as cytotoxic T cells (CTLs).” The company said its ultimate goal is the introduction of lasting memory T-cell responses to promote cancer immunity.
Jay Bradner, president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, expressed the excitement about the working relationship with Orionis. Bradner said their hope is that through the collaboration with Orionis, Novartis will be able to “reach historically elusive targets” as they look to bring new therapeutic options to patients. Bradner said Novartis will combine its expertise in drug discovery and development with Orionis’ “innovative technologies for rapidly identifying and prioritizing new targets at a genome-wide scale.”
In addition to Kley at the helm of the company, Orionis is also led by Chief Technology Officer Jan Tavernier, who is also a professor at VIB-Ghent University in Belgium, as well as Riccardo Sabatini, who heads up the company’s computational science platform.
Sabatini said that it is exciting to see how the mapping of genome-scale fingerprints of drug action has opened new possibilities to support drug design.
