The Institut Pasteur, a private non-profit international biomedical research center based in Paris (France), and Stragen, privately-owned, international healthcare company based in Geneva (Switzerland), announced today that they have entered together into an exclusive worldwide license for intellectual property, related to derivatives of endogenous dual enkephalinase inhibitor (DENKI) novel compounds for pain management.
Press release
Paris, May 6, 2015
The Institut Pasteur had entered into a collaborative research agreement with Stragen for the development of its first-in class novel drug Opiorphin® in 2011, after several years of research in its laboratories. During the development, Stragen identified a new lead compound referred to as STR-324, which was selected for the future development. STR-324 is a human endogenous DENKI peptide which has shown excellent pre-clinical efficacy results in nociceptive and neuropathic pain with favorable safety profile. It will enter into Phase I clinical studies in the third quarter of 2015.
According to the terms of the license agreement, Stragen will pursue at its own costs the development of STR-324. The Institut Pasteur will receive contingent payments such as clinical and regulatory milestones and royalties on net sales of products covered by the license.
“After over three years of research, we are extremely excited to confirm the great potential we see in this first-in-class pain management novel drug” stated Jean-Luc Tétard, President of Stragen. “We believe that STR-324 holds great promises in pain therapy as it is expected to have a significantly better safety profile than best-in-class current opioid gold standards treatments. STR-324 demonstrated promising analgesic results in animal models of post-operative and neuropathic pain. We are pleased to announce this license with the Institut Pasteur.”
“I am extremely happy to see such a fruitful outcome of this collaboration. This project started years ago with a dedicated laboratory at the Institut Pasteur aimed to develop this peptide to provide patients with an alternative pain management. This collaboration with Stragen allows us to have a strong partner to bring this new drug to clinic with great promises for patients” commented Isabelle Buckle, Executive Vice President, Technology transfer & Industrial Partnerships, Institut Pasteur.
Illustration: Neurons. © Institut Pasteur/Philippe Casanova
About the Institut Pasteur
The Institut Pasteur, a private foundation with officially recognized charitable status set up by Louis Pasteur in 1887, is today an internationally renowned center for biomedical research with a network of 32 institutes worldwide. In the pursuit of its mission to prevent and fight against diseases in France and throughout the world, the Institut Pasteur operates in four main areas: scientific and medical research, public health and health monitoring, teaching, and business development and technology transfer.
More than 2,400 people work on its Paris campus. The Institut Pasteur is a globally recognized leader in infectious diseases, microbiology, and immunology. Its 130 units also focus their research on certain cancers, genetic and neurodegenerative diseases, genomics and developmental biology. This research aims to expand our knowledge of living organisms in a bid to lay the foundation for new prevention strategies and novel therapeutics. Since its inception, 10 Institut Pasteur scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, including two in 2008 for the 1983 discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.
About Stragen Healthcare Group
Stragen is an independent and private group with a focus on the development of niche generics and innovative molecules from laboratory research to clinical proof of concept.
Stragen provides a wide range of services from pre-clinical and clinical development, dossier compiling, registration and marketing and distribution of drug products.
Stragen has also an engineering department specialized in technology transfers.
Stragen has a direct presence in 9 countries and distributors in more than 50 countries.
