Boehringer expands Variant collaboration to cardiovascular disease in deal worth up to $250 million

German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim has expanded its collaboration with genomics-based biotech company Variant Bio into cardiovascular disease. The deal could be worth up to $250 million (about 335 billion won).

According to U.S. pharmaceutical trade publication Fierce Biotech on the 23rd, Boehringer Ingelheim added cardiovascular disease indications to its existing collaboration agreement with Variant Bio.

The companies signed a $120 million deal in January. It called for using Variant Bio’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based Inference platform to identify and validate new therapeutic targets for heart and kidney diseases.

Variant Bio, headquartered in Seattle, said the platform integrates genomic, deep phenotypic and multiomics data from studies of diverse populations around the world.

“Cardiovascular and kidney diseases are closely linked and represent one of the world’s greatest health challenges,” Variant Bio said.

Under the expanded agreement, Variant Bio will receive an additional upfront payment and could receive more than $250 million in total through future licensing and milestone payments. Specific financial details were not disclosed.

Søren Tullin, head of cardiovascular, renal and metabolic disease research at Boehringer Ingelheim, said, “Our goal is to identify genetically supported targets and open a new path toward first-in-class treatments for patients with cardiovascular disease.”

Boehringer Ingelheim has a strong presence in cardiovascular medicine, with products including Jardiance for heart failure and chronic kidney disease, Pradaxa to prevent blood clots, and Twynsta for hypertension.

The expanded agreement came one day after Boehringer Ingelheim signed a multiyear deal worth $1 billion with AI drug development company Envisagenics to validate tumor-specific targets.

Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk also signed a multiyear research agreement with Variant Bio in January 2025 to study the genetics of metabolic diseases across diverse populations.