Roche has taken fresh steps to uphold its breast cancer legacy defined by Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Perjeta (pertuzumab), as its subsidiary, Genentech, has inked a global drug discovery and licensing deal with UK biotech Astex Pharmaceuticals.
Through this deal, Roche will hand over $25m to Astex upfront, while committing to pay more than $465m if any assets from the collaboration hit preclinical, clinical, regulatory and sales milestones. The Swiss pharma giant will also offer tiered royalties on net sales of any medications commercialised through this partnership.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
In exchange, Astex will provide Genentech with the exclusive rights to compounds from its breast cancer drug discovery programme. The British pharma company will also work alongside Genentech to identify selective, small molecule-based cell cycle regulating compounds with the intention of forging new preclinical candidates.
As per the terms of the collaboration, Genentech will take the helm on both the preclinical and clinical development of any therapies created from this partnership, while assuming commercial responsibility for medicines that make it to market.
Cambridge-based Astex Pharmaceuticals’ drug discovery programme originally stemmed from a collaboration between Newcastle University and the innovation arm of charity Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Horizons, which focused on fragment-based drug discovery.
According to Astex’s president, Michelle Jones, this focus has led to the identification of a “novel and innovative approach to selectively inhibit” this target to treat breast cancer.
Roche’s deal with Astex comes just under a month after the pharma giant inked a $2.3bn blood cancer deal with Nurix Therapeutics – obtaining the rights to its Phase III-poised Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, bexobrutideg.
To broaden its horizons in the cancer space, Roche’s diagnostics division also acquired long-term partner and digital pathology specialist PathAI for $1.05bn – a move which enhanced the former’s precision cancer diagnosis offering.
UK pharma presence on the rise
Astex secures this deal with Roche as the UK life sciences sector strives for success, with the British government taking several steps to boost its competitiveness on the global stage.
With this has come early signs towards the recovery of the UK biotech financing market, with a report from the British trade body, the BioIndustry Association (BIA), revealing that the total amount of equity financing raised by UK-based companies in Q1 2026 was £552m ($746m) – marking a 18% uptick from the £466m ($632m) raised in Q4 2025.
At the time of its debut, the UK-US pharma trade deal was also touted as an important cog in the machine driving Britain’s market success due to the country’s immunity to US import tariffs. However, research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has brought this into contention, with forecasts by a doctor’s union suggesting the deal could cost the National Health Service (NHS) £44.7bn by the end of 2036, while resulting in around 229,000 excess deaths.
At the 2026 Outsourcing in Clinical Trials UK & Ireland conference in London, experts noted that the UK would benefit from replicating the success of the clinical trials hub Catalonia as it looks to boost its global standing in the life sciences space.
