Purdue Pharma enters new therapeutic area with Exicure collaboration
As part of the agreement, Purdue Pharma will acquire full worldwide development and commercial rights to the lead compound AST-005, a topically-applied SNA, as well as an option to three additional collaboration targets with associated intellectual property, according to the company.
Exicure has the potential to bring in up to $790m as part of the collaboration.
Alan Butcher, Head of Licensing and Business Development, at Purdue Pharma L.P., told us the long-term, strategic collaboration agreement with Exicure fits the company’s “short- and long-term development strategy to identify cutting edge platforms,” which will allow it to develop novel medicines “to address unmet medical needs across multiple therapeutic areas.”
“It also provides us the flexibility to maximize the value of our development pipeline by innovating products with diverse drug delivery approaches,” Butcher said.
“This technology platform in particular lends itself well for rapidly bringing forward important medicines in a multitude of disease areas.”
According to the company, the first trial with AST-005 met the safety and tolerability requirements in patients with mild to moderate psoriasis. Butcher explained further clinical studies will be progressed in 2017.
“This is exciting because it marks our entry into a new therapeutic area, expands Purdue’s pipeline and furthers our objective to provide novel therapies for patients suffering from chronic conditions,” added Butcher.
