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Swiss pharma giant Roche has struck a deal worth up to $2 billion with Manifold Bio, a Boston-based biotech spun out of George Church’s Harvard lab, to develop new ways of delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The partnership begins with an upfront payment of $55 million to access Manifold’s mDesign discovery platform, which uses in vivo screening to identify thousands of potential BBB shuttles — molecules capable of carrying drugs safely into the brain.
Under the agreement, Manifold will spearhead early R&D to find and design these brain-targeting shuttles, while Roche will handle later preclinical and clinical development. If successful, Manifold could receive up to $2 billion in development and sales milestone payments, plus royalties on any marketed drugs. The company also has the option to co-fund one program in exchange for higher royalties.
Manifold’s approach aims to solve one of medicine’s toughest challenges — getting large therapeutic molecules, like antibodies or RNA drugs, into the brain. Its platform directly tests thousands of engineered shuttles in living systems to identify those that can cross the BBB through multiple receptor “portals.” According to CEO Gleb Kuznetsov, Ph.D., this AI-driven, high-throughput method could unlock a new generation of brain-targeted medicines.
Roche, which has worked on BBB-shuttle technologies for more than 15 years, brings extensive experience in the field — including trontinemab, a brain shuttle antibody now in phase 3 trials for Alzheimer’s disease. Roche’s Boris Zaïtra said the collaboration with Manifold will help identify “next-generation, highly specific BBB shuttles” that could be applied across multiple neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
