Biopharmaceutical company Sosei Group Corporation (TSE:4565) on Tuesday announced a multi-target research collaboration and license agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, for promising new therapeutic intervention points across a range of diseases.

This agreement allows Sosei Group to discover and develop novel medicines (new small molecules and/or biologics) that modulate G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets of interest to Genentech.

Pursuant to the agreement, the collaboration will combine the proprietary GPCR-focused structure-based drug design capabilities at Sosei Heptares with Genentech's discovery, development and therapeutic area expertise directed towards multiple GPCR targets nominated by Genentech.

In conjunction with the agreement, Genentech will be responsible for developing and commercializing potential new medicines for each novel target and will have exclusive global rights to these agents.

Concurrently, Sosei Heptares is eligible to receive USD26m in upfront and near-term payments, future milestone payments that may exceed USD1bn for achieving pre-specified research, development and commercialization events as well as royalty payments on the net sales of potential future medicines resulting from the collaboration.