Roche’s Genentech is scrapping a collaboration and license agreement with Relay Therapeutics surrounding the biotech’s clinical-stage oral SHP2 inhibitor.
It’s the latest pharmaceutical company to renege on an SHP2 partnership in oncology. Bristol Myers Squibb departed a pact with BridgeBio earlier this year, AbbVie did the same with Jacobio Pharma in 2023, and Sanofi left Revolution Medicines in 2022. Merck, meanwhile, continues to have an SHP2 deal in place with Taiho and Astex.
Genentech “elected to terminate the agreement without cause,” Cambridge, MA-based Relay disclosed in a Tuesday post-market SEC filing. As part of their 2020 deal, Genentech had assumed development of the oral small molecule, dubbed GDC-1971/RLY-1971, or migoprotafib.
The decision was “not based on any emerging clinical safety concerns,” a Genentech spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Endpoints News.
The drug went through a monotherapy study a few years ago and is in a couple of Phase 1 trials in combination with other drugs. The pair had broad ambitions for the SHP2 inhibitor across multiple solid tumor types, including as a combination partner for Genentech’s KRAS G12C candidate known as GDC-6036, or divarasib.
“Genentech is committed to ensuring that patients being treated with GDC-1971 in clinical trials continue to have access,” the Genentech spokesperson said. “All patients enrolled in a trial involving GDC-1971 or combinations thereof will continue to receive study treatment as long as they meet study criteria and they and their physician agree to continue.”
Relay received $75 million upfront to kick off the collaboration in late 2020. Genentech has paid about another $45 million in biobucks and R&D reimbursements since then, according to Relay’s SEC paperwork on Tuesday. Under the original pact, Relay could have received up to $695 million in milestone payments.
Roche, the parent of Genentech, has broadly fine-tuned its pipeline in the past year. Genentech itself broke off a T cell therapy tie-up with Adaptimmune earlier this year, and is also reducing about 3% of its workforce, the company told Endpoints in April.
“We’ve taken out 20% of our molecules that have a lower likelihood to succeed, and we’ve added new ones through partnering,” Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker said on a first-quarter earnings call with the media in April. It’s part of normal business to prioritize and “constantly reallocate,” he added.
Relay doesn’t plan to make any workforce changes as a result of the axed deal, given Genentech was the one responsible for the experimental medicine’s development, a spokesperson for the biotech told Endpoints.