NEW YORK – Roche and Mimetas, a Dutch developer of organ-on-a-chip-based disease models and technology, said on Tuesday that they have partnered to develop human disease models to characterize novel drug compounds in inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, and hepatitis B virus, or HBV, infections.
Under the terms of the agreement, Mimetas is eligible to receive an unspecified upfront payment and milestone payments from Roche.
Mimetas will be responsible for developing tissue-based disease models and assays in its organ-on-a-chip platform, OrganoPlate. Roche will have access to the technology, the disease models, and the resulting data, as well as an option to exclusively license specific disease models and assays for use in drug discovery.
"The collaboration with Roche leverages our ongoing focus on developing predictive, phenotypic models, preceded by numerous successful projects over the last eight years," Mimetas CEO Jos Joore said in a statement. "We will leverage our disease modeling expertise in our OrganoPlate platform to gain novel insights in IBD and HBV."
James Sabry, global head of pharma partnering at Roche, also noted that the models have the potential to "improve our understanding of disease biology and transform our drug discovery process."