GSK Forms Strategic Drug Development Deals with Relation and Muna

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GSK has entered into strategic deals with two companies in December 2024 to advance drug development. GSK and Relation, a UK-based platform biotechnology company developing medicines for diseases with significant unmet need, will conduct two multi-program collaborations that will focus on the identification and validation of novel therapeutic targets for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis, according to a Dec. 10, 2024 press release (1). In another collaboration, GSK and Muna Therapeutics, a Denmark-based biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, will identify and validate novel drug targets for treating Alzheimer’s disease, according to a Dec. 5, 2024 press release (2).

Under the two collaboration agreements with Relation, GSK will pay a total upfront payment of $45 million, comprising an equity investment of $15 million. Relation will be eligible to receive success-based collaboration payments of up to $63 million. It will also be eligible to receive potential preclinical, development, commercial, and sales milestone payments averaging $200 million per target across both deals as well as tiered royalties on net sales of products.

Fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis are debilitating diseases that affect millions of patients worldwide. They represent areas of significant unmet medical need, according to Relation’s press release.

“These diseases have few treatments that address their root causes. By combining Relation’s patient-centric discovery platform with GSK’s global scale and expertise, we have the potential to accelerate the development of transformative medicines for patients who have long awaited new therapies,” said David Roblin, CEO of Relation, in the release (1). “Our approach of generating data directly from patient tissue allows us to build a comprehensive picture of the underlying human disease biology at scale. This, combined with our deployment of machine learning, enables us to make unprecedented inferences about how to effectively intervene in disease processes.”

In the collaboration with GSK, Relation will lead observational studies with the aim of generating two unique functional disease data sets. Meanwhile, Relation’s Lab-in-the-Loop platform will be used to analyze these data by integrating human genetics, single-cell multi-omics directly from human tissue, functional assays, and machine learning to discover novel disease targets. The company stated in its release that this approach minimizes the risk of clinical failure by ensuring that targets are robustly validated before entering the clinic. Relation will apply its platform to a number of related fibrotic conditions as well as osteoarthritis. GSK will have worldwide development and commercialization rights to any targets resulting from Relation’s studies.

“Working with Relation enables us to gain deep and precise insights into human causal biology and apply these to therapeutic discovery through a data-driven approach, supported by Relation’s proprietary platform,” said Kaivan Khavandi, senior vice-president, global head of Respiratory/Immunology R&D at GSK, in Relation’s press release (1). “The resulting targets will be supported by robust translational packages, which will in turn provide clarity on deployment in early clinical evaluation, ultimately supporting our broader portfolio ambition to develop new medicines for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis—where there remains significant unmet medical need.”

Under the deal with Muna Therapeutics, GSK will pay €33.5 million (US$35 million) upfront, and Muna will be eligible to receive up to €140 million (US$147 million) per target in milestone payments. Muna will also be eligible to receive tiered royalties on net sales of products. GSK and Muna will explore insights from Muna’s MiND-MAP platform, a technology that applies spatial transcriptomics to brain samples from Alzheimer’s disease patients, cognitively resilient individuals, healthy controls, and centenarians with and without cognitive impairment. The platform generates a unique dataset of significant breadth and resolution that is expected to drive the discovery and development of innovative medicines for Alzheimer's disease, Muna stated in its company press release (2). GSK, in return, will lead drug development and take responsibility for preclinical activities, clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization.

This collaboration leverages Muna’s expertise in mapping the brain’s response to pathological protein aggregates and the company’s all-in-human platform that identifies cellular mechanisms, gene networks, and molecular interactions underlying brain resilience. Any resulting candidate drug targets will be validated using Muna’s suite of humanized cell and animal models, which are supported by insights from patient tissue and biofluid samples.

“Our agreement marks a pivotal moment in Muna’s evolution and in the broader Alzheimer's research landscape. By combining GSK's commitment to breakthrough science with our MiND-MAP platform's ability to deliver novel insights into brain resilience, we aim to transform the landscape of drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases and bring new hope to millions of patients worldwide,” said Rita Balice-Gordon, PhD, Muna’s chief executive officer, in Muna’s press release (2).

“By applying spatial multi-omics to unique patient phenotypes, Muna's MiND-MAP platform is able to determine the genetic and cellular basis of progression and resilience in neurodegenerative diseases. The alliance exemplifies our discovery ethos, to utilize advanced data and platform tech to identify high-confidence, human-data-derived, causal targets, which we can support with GSK’s scale and expertise in clinical development and commercialization, to bring desperately needed new therapeutic solutions in Alzheimer’s disease,” said Khavandi, in the Muna press release.

References

1. Relation. Relation Announces Two Strategic Collaborations with GSK to Advance Therapeutics for Fibrotic Diseases and Osteoarthritis. Press Release. Dec. 10, 2024.
2. Muna Therapeutics. Muna Therapeutics Announces Strategic Alliance with GSK to Accelerate Development of Novel Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease. Press Release. Dec. 5, 2024.