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 a 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 a 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.