Dive Brief:Sanofi is teaming up with a young biotechnology company to discover and develop new oral drugs for diseases tied to the immune system.Announced Thursday, the alliance between Sanofi and Recludix Pharma specifically revolves around a protein called STAT6, which research suggests plays a role in some respiratory and skin disorders.Deal terms hold that Recludix will get $125 million in the near term and, potentially, more than $1.2 billion in additional payments if the drugs it advances achieve certain development, regulatory and sales milestones. The biotech could also receive up to double-digit royalties on future sales of any products stemming from the partnership. Sanofi, meanwhile, will have global rights to the medicines that emerge from the collaboration.Dive Insight:The success of Dupixent, an inflammation-regulating medicine expected to soon become a megablockbuster, has encouraged Sanofi to continue investing in immunology.In 2021, for example, the company spent just over a billion dollars to acquire Kymab, a U.K.-based biotech with a drug in mid-stage clinical testing that Sanofi believed had potential to treat a wide variety of immune-mediated diseases and inflammatory disorders. Kymabs drug recently scored positive results in a study testing it in patients with moderate-to-severe eczema.Within the large branch of research that is immunology, Sanofi has identified dermatology, rheumatology, gastroenterology and respiratory diseases as four priority areas. The companys latest deal, with its focus on STAT6, may hit on at least two of them.“Recludixs approach to targeting STAT6 has significant potential for a number of [immunological and inflammatory] diseases, especially where a precisely tailored oral therapy could best fit within the patients needs at various stages of disease,“ said Frank Nestle, Sanofis chief scientific officer and global head of research, in a statement.Recludix officially launched in late 2021, equipped with $60 million in funding from a group of investors that included NEA, Westlake Village Partners and Access Biotechnology. The startup was co-founded by Nicholas Lydon, who was also a scientific founder of the cancer drugmaker Blueprint Medicines and played a key role in the development of the targeted therapy Gleevec.At launch, Recludix appointed as its CEO Nancy Whiting, who had previously spent 15 years at Seattles largest biotech, Seagen. There, she served in leadership roles such as executive vice president of corporate strategy and executive vice president of late-stage development.By the time Whiting joined Recludix, the company had established programs directed at STAT6 and a related protein named STAT3.The new Sanofi collaboration speaks to our ability to successfully solve the challenge of drugging this attractive, yet elusive, therapeutic target, Whiting said. '