The agreement, which BMO Capital Markets called a “mild positive” for Structure, appears to address Roche’s concerns about the composition of investigational weight loss drug CT-996.
In a bid to position itself as a leader in the oral obesity arena, Roche has entered into an agreement with Gasherbrum Bio, a subsidiary of Structure Therapeutics, to license certain patents of Structure’s that are incorporated into CT-996, Roche’s investigational weight loss pill.
The agreement, which was inked on Dec. 30, 2025 but announced in an SEC filing on Monday, grants Roche—through its subsidiary Genentech—a non-exclusive license to “make, use, sell, offer for sale and import” products containing CT-996. In exchange for these rights, the pharma will pay $100 million upfront and has promised Structure royalties in the low-single-digit range on net sales.
It remains unclear what these licensed patents are for, with Structure noting only that the deal “does not encumber any of the Company’s ongoing programs, including aleniglipron,” Structure’s own GLP-1 agonist, only relating to the CT-996 scaffold.
The agreement also contains “a covenant not to assert certain potential future patents with respect to [Genentech’s] and its affiliates’ manufacture, use, sale, offer for sale or importation of [Genentech] Products.”
While the specifics are not yet public, Leerink Partners noted that the deal appears to head off Roche’s legal concerns about CT-996’s composition, writing in a Monday afternoon note that “Roche approached [Structure] for the license after a full analysis of the IP landscape and a need for a license to avoid any potential infringement.”
Writing to investors on Monday evening, analysts at BMO Capital Markets called the Roche agreement “a mild positive” for Structure—one that “highlights the strength of Structure’s IP protections but represents a muted read-through to the stock.” At $64 apiece, the biotech was up 1.96% after the trading session, relative to its closing price of $62.77.
BMO insisted, however, that for Structure, Monday’s agreement with Roche “is not the large Pharma partnership that some Structure owners have been anxiously awaiting.” The biotech last month released Phase IIb data for aleniglipron, touting an 11.3% placebo-adjusted reduction in weight at 36 weeks.
William Blair analysts at the time said these findings are competitive with Eli Lilly’s own obesity pill orforglipron, noting that the biotech’s stock movement—shares spiked 100% in the wake of the data drop—could have been driven by the prospect of deals from Big Pharma.
BMO on Monday echoed this assessment, noting that “Structure now appears an even more viable option for large Pharma to partner with and expand commercially in the future.” While Roche did not provide the biotech with such an opportunity, the analysts added, the agreement still gives Structure “some incremental cash and future revenue.”
Leerink Partners saw the deal as a positive for Structure too, saying that the deal “support[s] [Structure] management’s view that the company has the broadest and strongest global IP portfolio related to GLP-1 receptor agonist small molecules.”
For Roche, the patent partnership is in line with its continued investment in the obesity space. In late 2023, the pharma swallowed Carmot Therapeutics in a $2.7 billion agreement, bringing into its fold CT-996, as well as the dual GLP-1 and GIP receptor agonist CT-388. Then, in May last year, Roche put $5.3 billion on the line to partner with Zealand Pharma and co-develop its amylin analog petrelintide.
