Pharmaceutical giant Roche will acquire Good Therapeutics, reeling in its lead program six years after the Seattle startup was founded to design drugs that operate only where needed in the body.
Roche will make an upfront payment of $250 million for the acquisition, focused on a preclinical drug candidate in immuno-oncology. The deal, announced Wednesday morning, comes with the potential for future payments based on development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, and includes rights to develop closely related agents based on the platform. The 26-employee Good Therapeutics team will remain in Seattle, operating under a newly-formed company, Bonum Therapeutics. (Bonum means ‘good’ in Latin.)
Good Therapeutics has additional programs at earlier stages of development focused on targeted delivery and regulation of other immune modulators, including interferon-alpha and TGF-beta. These programs and the core technology were not transferred to Roche and will continue at Bonum.
