Novartis and Orionis Double Down: 1.4B Molecular Glue Pact Targets “Undruggable” Diseases
Novartis (NYSE: NVS) has expanded its collaboration with Orionis Biosciences in a multi‑year molecular glue drug discovery deal that includes 40 million dollars upfront and up to 1.4 billion dollars in potential milestones plus royalties. The partnership deepens an existing relationship and centers on Orionis’s Allo‑Glue platform and AI‑driven discovery engine to design molecular glue medicines across multiple disease areas.
Deal structure and economics
Novartis will pay Orionis a 40 million dollar upfront payment to kick off the collaboration. Beyond that, Orionis is eligible for research, development, and commercial milestone payments that could total up to 1.4 billion dollars, along with tiered royalties on net sales of any resulting products.
The new agreement “tightens” a relationship that began with a 2020 discovery alliance in which Novartis provided research funding, a convertible note investment, royalties, and potential clinical milestones tied to Orionis’s induced‑proximity and degrader work. Taken together, these deals underscore Novartis’s broader push into protein degradation and molecular glue modalities through multiple partnerships.
Scientific and strategic focus
The collaboration targets so‑called molecular glue medicines—small molecules that induce proximity between a disease‑related protein and a cellular machinery component (often a ligase), leading to modulation or degradation of the target. Orionis will contribute its Allo‑Glue platform and AI‑based discovery tools to systematically profile targets and ligases and to optimize glue molecules that work via induced proximity.
Novartis and Orionis plan to apply this approach to “challenging therapeutic targets” across multiple disease areas, aiming at proteins that have been difficult to drug using conventional small molecules. Novartis’ interest fits into a broader strategy of investing in protein degraders and molecular glues, including separate collaborations with Monte Rosa Therapeutics and others in immunology and oncology.
