LAUSANNE, Switzerland, and BANGALORE, India, Sept. 13
/PRNewswire/ — Debiopharm Group™ (Debiopharm), a Swiss-based
global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the
development of innovative prescription drugs that target unmet
medical needs, and Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd. (Aurigene),
a Bangalore-based fully integrated, global biotech focused on small
molecule and peptide drug discovery and development from target
identification and validation to pre-IND drug candidates, today
announced the successful nomination of a development candidate,
Debio 0617, a novel inhibitor of an undisclosed oncology pathway.
Debio 0617 has started IND enabling studies and is expected to
enter clinical development in 2012.
Debiopharm and Aurigene have been collaborating for five years.
In November 2008, Aurigene’s fragment-based drug delivery
technology platform had generated potent leads against the target.
Both companies signed an exclusive worldwide license agreement,
excluding the territories of Japan and the rest of Asia, to develop
and commercialise Debio 0617. They defined a target molecular
profile at the beginning of the program. Now, 20 months later, both
teams have successfully identified the development candidate which
better fits the initial target molecular profile.
“What exciting news! As we expected, this program has delivered
a development candidate molecule as well as several potential
follow-on compounds,” said Rolland-Yves Mauvernay, president and
founder of Debiopharm Group™. “Once again, Aurigene has
demonstrated its dedication and professionalism.”
“This represents an important success not just for this
scientific program, but also for the strategic path that was
established through this agreement between Debiopharm and Aurigene.
This is a truly synergistic relationship that takes advantage of
the proven experience, expertise and processes at Debiopharm,
coupled with the speed, flexibility and high-qualit
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