Boehringer Ingelheim is continuing to explore its newfound enthusiasm for eye health, penning a $1 billion biobucks pact with Re-Vana Therapeutics.
The collaboration will focus on Re-Vana’s ocular drug delivery technology, which is designed to reduce the need for ophthalmic patients to receive regular injections by slowly releasing treatments into the eye over six to 12 months.
Boehringer may be a relative newcomer to the eye health space, but the German drugmaker has made up for lost time in recent years—including licensing a bispecific antibody from Surrozen and forming a geographic-atrophy-focused pact with RetinAI. The pharma said it plans to combine Re-Vana’s delivery tech with Boehringer’s own eye pipeline, which includes four assets in phase 2 trials.
“Lowering the treatment burden could lead to higher treatment compliance, and potentially result in better therapeutic outcomes,” Boehringer explained in the July 28 release.
The collaboration could see Boehringer add up to three extended-release programs a year to its R&D schedule, with Re-Vana lending a hand for the feasibility and development activities before Boehringer takes the resulting drugs into the clinic. Boehringer has exclusive rights to these programs in the agreed-upon targets.
“By combining our extended-release platform with Boehringer Ingelheim’s world-class research and development capabilities and eye health pipeline, we strive to bring forward a new generation of long-acting treatments for eye diseases that offer clinical and quality-of-life benefits for patients,” Re-Vana CEO Michael O’Rourke said in the release.
The companies didn’t break down the financials of the deal but said the combined upfront and milestone payments for the initial three targets alone could exceed $1 billion.
“We’re looking forward to team[ing] up with Re-Vana to push the boundaries of what’s possible in eye health,” said Nedim Pipic, M.D., global head of mental health, eye health and emerging areas at Boehringer. “Together, we want to tackle the limits of today’s treatments—aiming to help people keep their sight, with fewer injections.”
Boehringer’s phase 2-stage ophthalmology portfolio includes a sema3A antibody for diabetic retinopathy and an antibody fragment for geographic atrophy. In an interview with Fierce Biotech last week, the pharma’s chief medical officer, Lykke Hinsch Gylvin, M.D., said the company's ophthalmology work is “fairly new for Boehringer” but has already been “recognized by clinicians as something to look out for.”