Roche seals its first open innovation agreement in Europe

Uppsala BIO has signed a three-year agreement with Roche under which it will work with the pharma company to progress early-stage academic research towards the market.

The arrangement gives the pharma company the opportunity to influence the direction of research carried out by Uppsala BIO’s academic members and for these researchers to get access to Roche’s expertise and other resources, to move projects to a conclusion as quickly as possible.

Specifically, Roche will take part in Uppsala BIO’s BIO-X programme, which aims to bridge the gap between the typical outputs of academic research and proof of concept – or the point at which a technology or a potential drug compound would be in a suitable shape to feed into the bottom end of Roche’s R&D pipeline.

According to Uppsala BIO, the agreement is the conclusion of a long search by Roche for possible partners in Europe for its open innovation programme, which it calls Expanding the Innovation Network. It follows a thorough evaluation by Roche of the BIO-X scheme.

“[Roche] believes in not trying to change [a partner’s] way of working, but in finding a programme [it] can tap into,” Erik Forsberg, managing director of Uppsala BIO told Science|Business.

In BIO-X, academic researchers in the region, including those based at Uppsala University, the Karolinski Institutet and the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences submit their ideas on how to meet particular needs that have been specified by Uppsala BIO’s industrial partners, in a formal call. These proposals are then evaluated to assess if they meet the specified requirements, and for their commercial potential.

Selected projects are then financed for two years, with Uppsala BIO and its industrial partners setting out a development plan and providing guidance and feedback. This is particularly important in drug discovery, where licensees of academic programmes often find they need to go back and repeat early-stage research to ensure it meets regulatory requirements.

“The BIO-X programme is structured on our side. It can be to do something specific, for example, to reach point of concept for a doctor’s office diagnostic test, or it can be broad, bringing together research from across our network,” Forsberg said.

He added that one advantage, both from the perspective of academic and industrial partners, is that clinicians can be involved in the early stages of translating research into products.

Roche will co-finance the BIO-X projects which it partners and in return will have first rights to negotiate on any intellectual property arising from the work. In Sweden all intellectual property rights are held by the academics that carry out the research. Forsberg said it may be that Roche in-licenses technology for onward development in house or the pharma company could be involved in financing further development. “Roche will contribute to the exit process; that may involve the [formation] of a new company.”

The calls themselves are defined by an ad hoc advisory group, of which Roche will now be part. “They will help us to phrase themes, though it may be they won’t be interested and won’t take part [in some of them],” said Forsberg. For example, the theme of the latest call this summer was green biotech. “Roche is not interested in that,” Forsberg noted.

Roche has not committed to support a specific number of projects, but those the company does select will have a specially-assigned contact within Roche. Uppsala BIO said this will ensure that the projects get access to the expertise and other internal resources they need.