Orionis Biosciences Announces Strategic Collaboration with Novartis to Discover and Develop Molecular Glue Medicines

The collaboration will leverage Orionis’s advanced Allo‑Glue™ platform and its AI‑driven discovery engine

BOSTON & GHENT, Belgium--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Orionis Biosciences, a privately held, clinical-stage life sciences company pioneering proximity-induced therapeutic modalities, today announced a multi-year collaboration with Novartis to discover and design molecular glue drugs for challenging therapeutic targets across multiple disease areas. The collaboration expands the existing relationship between the companies and reflects a shared commitment to unlock the full value of induced proximity approaches in drug development.

Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis and Orionis will use Orionis’s Allo-Glue™ platform, together with its AI-driven discovery engine, to accelerate target and ligase profiling and molecular glue optimization. These integrated capabilities enable the systematic discovery of small molecule glues that modulate therapeutic targets through induced proximity mechanisms. Orionis will receive an upfront payment of USD 40 million and is eligible to receive research, development, and commercial milestone payments of up to USD 1.4 billion, in addition to tiered royalties on net sales of collaboration products.

“We are proud to renew and expand our collaboration with Novartis,” said Niko Kley, Chief Executive Officer of Orionis Biosciences. “Having such a partner continue to engage deeply with us is a strong validation of the value of our molecular glue platform and the progress we have achieved toward rational and scalable discovery of this emerging drug class.”

“Our recent advances in AI and robotic automation have accelerated all aspects of molecular glue discovery, from systematic prioritization of productive target–ligase pairs to glue candidate discovery and optimization,” said Riccardo Sabatini, Chief Data Scientist at Orionis Biosciences. “This is exactly the kind of platform maturity that makes collaborations like this possible.”

“We are excited to deepen our collaboration with Orionis and to explore the full potential of molecular glue modalities across multiple therapeutic areas,” said John Tallarico, Head of Discovery Sciences at Novartis. “The Orionis platform offers an opportunity to rapidly uncover and design molecular glue mechanisms, enabling us to expand the horizon of targetable biology for future therapies.”

About Orionis Biosciences

Orionis Biosciences is a clinical‑stage life sciences company pioneering the systematic discovery and design of small and large molecule therapeutic modalities that act through molecular proximity mechanisms to impact challenging and traditionally elusive disease targets. The company’s proprietary Allo‑Glue™ small molecule platform enables functional reprogramming of proteins within living cells. Orionis has established advanced capabilities in chemical biology, artificial intelligence‑driven molecular design, and large‑scale cell‑based interrogation, enabling rational discovery of molecular glues for degradation, stabilization or modulation of target proteins. Orionis is advancing a diversified pipeline of programs in oncology and immunology and collaborates with leading biopharmaceutical companies to translate its technologies into transformative medicines.

To learn more, please visit www.orionisbio.com.