Aileron Therapeutics, a US-based biotechnology company, has signed a development deal worth potentially more than $1.1bn from one of its healthcare strategic investors.
Switzerland-based drugs company Roche will initially provide Aileron with $25m in technology access fees and research and development support work to develop drug candidates against up to five undisclosed targets in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and the central nervous system.
If all five target areas produce successful drugs, Aileron can receive up to $1.1bn plus royalties.
In June last year, Roche Venture Fund, the corporate venturing unit of the Swiss group, was part of a consortium, including Lilly Ventures, GlaxoSmithKline’s SR One, and Novartis Venture Funds, that invested $40m in Aileron’s series D round, and $60m in total.
The D round, however, was co-led by Michael Diem at SR One alongside Enrico Petrillo, general partner at venture capital firm Excel Medical Fund, and Seth Harrison, managing general partner at VC peer Apple Tree Partners, the founding investor of Aileron in 2005.
Campbell Murray, a managing director at Novartis Venture Funds, who led its investment alongside colleague Reinhard Ambros, by email said: "We were delighted (it was Reinhard and I who worked hard to get them [Roche] into the round). The answer to your second question [why did Roche rather than another of the consortium strike the development deal?] is easy: Roche Pharma put together the most attractive deal. We all have a fiduciary obligation to put the interests of our portfolio companies first."