Pharnext SA, a French biopharmaceutical company developing an advanced portfolio of products in the field of neurodegenerative diseases, today announced a research and development (R&D) agreement with Galapagos NV (Euronext & NASDAQ: GLPG). The main goal of this agreement is to generate an additional pipeline of novel synergistic drug combinations in a broad set of indications.
The agreement is based on both partners’ R&D capabilities while it will initially be based on Pharnext’s disruptive technological platform, PLEOTHERAPY™. Until now this platform has enabled the discovery and patenting of low dose combinations of approved drugs repositioned in a new indication and aims to develop more rapidly, safer and more efficacious treatments for unmet medical needs.
The collaboration agreement with Galapagos highlights another outstanding feature of Pharnext’s platform: its ability to reinforce the potential of new candidate drugs. For a given new preclinical or clinical candidate drug provided by Galapagos, Pharnext’s technology will aim to identify already approved drugs which could be combined at low doses with this new candidate in order to safely increase its efficacy.
This agreement will not only concern therapeutic indications that were primarily envisioned by Galapagos, but also others that Pharnext will identify. Expanding their market to new indications as well as generating new patents should significantly increase the value of the new compounds.
Pharnext’s cutting-edge approach is applicable to a broad spectrum of diseases. Therapeutic indications that will be considered in this R&D agreement will notably include immunoinflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders which represent potentially substantial markets. Each of the companies will have priority on indications which will have been previously allocated.
“At Pharnext we have demonstrated that deeper understanding of genetics and molecular networks that underpin pathologies is key to drug discovery. The R&D collaboration with Galapagos validates the value of Pharnext’s innovative platform, PLEOTHERAPY™. Thanks to this technology, our team has already produced two novel synergistic drug combinations in late-stage clinical development. Moreover, this collaboration will enlarge our product portfolio with drug combinations including also new compounds,” saidDaniel Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pharnext, “We are proud to collaborate with Galapagos, an innovative and dynamic company in the biotechnology landscape. We look forward to working with Galapagos to generate new treatment options for patients who have no effective solutions today.”
Onno van de Stolpe, Chief Executive Officer of Galapagos added, “Pharnext has already obtained promising clinical results with its cutting-edge technology, which has encouraged us to collaborate. We are very pleased to collaborate with Pharnext and to benefit from Pharnext’s expertise in deciphering diseases’ molecular networks. We hope that this will reinforce Galapagos’ R&D capabilities to generate new therapeutic approaches in a highly efficient and modern manner.”
Intellectual property with regard to synergistic drug combinations generated by the R&D collaboration will be jointly owned by Pharnext and Galapagos. Financial terms of the agreement are not disclosed.
