Swiss pharma giant Roche has closed its acquisition of US clinical-stage biotech Promedior. Roche snapped up the Lexington, Massachusetts-based firm for an upfront cash payment of $390 million plus additional payments of up to $1 billion, contingent on achieving certain predetermined development, regulatory and commercial milestones.

The two companies signed on the deal last November, more than four years after Promedior had agreed a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). In September 2015, BMS paid $150 million upfront to gain worldwide rights to PRM-151 and the option to acquire Promedior but the deal never came to fruition.

Promedior’s lead candidate is PRM-151, an investigational treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), which received breakthrough therapy designation from the Food and Drug Administration in March 2019.

"We look forward to being part of Roche to further advance programs in IPF, hematological cancer and other fibrotic disorders and bring new treatment options to patients within these areas of significant unmet need, said Promedior’s CEO Jason Lettmann

PRM-151 is a recombinant form of human pentraxin-2 protein that Promedior said opens up new opportunities to treat a wide range of systemic fibrotic diseases. The biotech said phase 2 trials had demonstrated that PRM-151 is the first molecule to show a slowing of decline in lung function in combination with standard of care (SoC) therapies, when compared to SoC alone.

The therapy has also shown broad anti-fibrotic activity in multiple preclinical models of fibrotic disease, including pulmonary fibrosis, myelofibrosis, acute and chronic nephropathy, liver fibrosis and age-related macular degeneration.