Signs of product payoff from GSK’s $1.5bn alliance
pharmafile | January 12, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | ChemoCentryx, Crohn's, GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline is to develop and commercialise a drug which hopes will be a treatment for moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease.
Californian biotech firm ChemoCentryx’s Traficet-EN (CCX282-B) is a specific CCR9 antagonist aimed at inflammatory bowel diseases including Crohn’s.
GSK’s move is the first product licensing opportunity arising from a $1.5 billion drug discovery alliance with ChemoCentryx which the manufacturer signed more than three years ago.
“Progressing the development of CCX282-B takes us closer to a valuable new treatment option for patients who suffer from these chronic, debilitating bowel diseases,” said Moncef Slaoui, GSK’s chairman of research and development.
“This milestone also demonstrates the value of GSK’s strategy of seeking early phase strategic collaborations with organisations conducting leading edge drug discovery.”
The agreement, through GSK’s Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery, gives it access to some candidates and licensing options.
The companies say CCX282-B could offer Crohn’s disease sufferers benefits in terms of reduced side effects and convenient oral dosing.
The small molecule drug comes in capsule form and blocks the CCR9 chemokine receptor, which is expressed by inflammatory T cells that migrate to the digestive tract.
This migration is believed to cause the persistent inflammation seen in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, so blocking it is thought to modify the immune system response.
ChemoCentryx has completed the placebo-controlled phase II PROTECT-1 study as well as six phase I clinical trials and one four-week phase II Crohn’s disease trial of CCX282-B at doses up to 1,000 mg twice daily.
CCX282-B was also shown to be well-tolerated after use up to one year.
“We are especially pleased with the progress and results of the PROTECT-1 study, as it represents the first definitive clinical evidence that chemokine receptors can be successfully targeted to treat a major inflammatory disease such as Crohn’s,” said Thomas Schall, chief executive of ChemoCentryx.
GSK will now take responsibility for CCX282-B’s development and will consider it for potential studies in ulcerative colitis – the other main inflammatory bowel disease – and the company also has a licencing option on two further backup compounds.
Crohn’s is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract affecting more than half a million people in Europe and North America.
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