On December 19, 2019, Rheos Medicines, a biopharmaceutical company in the emerging field of immunometabolism, announced a worldwide exclusive collaboration, option, and license agreement with Roche to discover, develop, and commercialize novel therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory disease. Wilson Sonsini advised Rheos Medicines in the agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Rheos will conduct an exclusive research effort to find new drugs in immunometabolism that modify the fate or function of certain human immune cells. Rheos will also be responsible for drug discovery efforts under the collaboration. In addition, Roche will exclusively license a defined number of programs emerging from the collaboration. Rheos will receive an upfront cash payment of $42.5 million and will be eligible to receive approximately $90 million for certain research and development milestones, as well as option fees. Rheos also will be eligible to receive up to $600 million for specified development, regulatory, sales related milestones.

The Wilson Sonsini team advising Rheos includes partner Farah Gerdes and associate Sarah Parker.

For more information, please refer to the company’s press release.