Astellas teams up with Proteostasis against protein defects
pharmafile | November 4, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Astellas, Biogen IDEC, Protein, Proteostasis, upr
Astellas has announced it will collaborate with Proteostasis Therapeutics to develop drugs for diseases caused by protein defects, using the latter company’s platforms.
The alliance with explore drugs than can modulate the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway. Problems with the UPR are associated with many protein conformational diseases: including genetic, neurodegenerative and retinal degenerative diseases.
In a statement the companies say that selective modulation of the UPR pathway in non-clinical investigations has led to improvements in patients of these diseases, suggesting that it could potentially be beneficial as a novel therapy for multiple diseases with high unmet medical needs.
The two firms will be using Proteostasis’s ‘Disease Relevant Translation’ (DRT) and ‘Proteostasis Network’ (PN) platforms, which focus on correcting imbalances in the protein homeostasis network.
The DRT platform is also currently being used in a cystic fibrosis drug development programme and in partnership with Biogen Idec for the development of neurodegenerative disease treatments.
“Proteostasis Therapeutics has a novel platform that offers a differentiated approach to discovering drugs for unmet medical needs,” says Kenji Yasukawa, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Astellas. “It complements our existing internal and externalized R&D initiatives and we continue to invest in innovative technologies that can provide new therapeutic options to patients.
“We look forward to working closely with Proteostasis Therapeutics to identify lead candidates for clinical development and potential commercialisation.”
The partnership is being led by Astellas’ Innovation Management (AIM) division and will initially focus on one genetic disease, while exploring other indications that can be affected by UPR pathway modulation.
Together the companies will conduct discovery, screening and pre-clinical research to identify lead compounds for development. Proteostasis will have the rights to opt in for global co-development and US co-promotion – once candidates have been selected.
Proteostasis will receive an initial upfront payment from Astellas, as well as a securities investment. The US firm is also eligible for research funding support, development and commercial milestones. These could result in total payments of over $400 million, in addition to tiered royalties.
Astellas also has the right to begin two additional projects under the same terms, which would bring the total potential value of the collaboration to $1.2 billion.
New drug approval
Meanwhile, Astellas is also growing in the field of infections diseases, with the FDA recently granting orphan drug designation to Astellas’ isavuconazole for the treatment of invasive candidiasis.
Invasive candidiasis is a serious hospital-acquired fungal infection that is associated with increased mortality in certain patients whose immune systems have been compromised. The estimated mortality rate of Candida infections ranges from 15 to 49%, with increasing reports of resistance to antibiotics making more treatment options much sought-after.
The orphan drug designation for isavuconazole provides a seven-year period of market exclusivity for Astellas in the US. The treatment was also previously granted orphan drug designation for invasive aspergillosis and invasive mucormycosis in 2013.
George Underwood
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