RQx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, for the discovery and development of novel drug compounds for an undisclosed target. Under the terms of the agreement, RQx will receive an up-front payment and is eligible to receive research and development milestone payments totalling $111 million. In addition, RQx is eligible to receive royalties on sales of products resulting from the collaboration.

“We have made tremendous progress at RQx since the company’s founding two years ago, and we are pleased to be moving forward in partnership with Genentech to bring new drugs to market,” said Court Turner, CEO of RQx and venture partner at Avalon Ventures.

RQx Pharmaceuticals was founded by Avalon Ventures in 2010 with Floyd Romesberg, Ph.D., a professor at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA) and two former graduate students of the Romesberg Lab. Avalon Ventures formed the company, then seeded and led the Company’s Series A financing, which also included an investment from Correlation Ventures.

“We see a unique opportunity to apply Genentech’s expertise in drug discovery and development with the innovation and focus of RQx, to develop a new class of novel drug compounds,” said James Sabry, senior vice president of partnering at Genentech.

RQx Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company developing broad-spectrum small molecule antibiotics to combat serious life threatening infections, including those caused by multi drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.