BRIEF — MedPharm and Palvella expand pachyonychia congenita partnership

Privately-held rare disease-focused biopharma Palvella Therapeutics has announced an expansion in its partnership with MedPharm over the development of a new treatment for pachyonychia congenita (PC).

UK-headquartered MedPharm brands itself as a leading, global provider of contract topical and transdermal product design and formulation development services.

To date, MedPharm has employed its formulation expertise to support the US biopharma's development of PTX 022, a new, high-strength rapamycin topical formulation for application to the skin as a disease-modifying treatment for the rare disease.

PC is a chronically debilitating, lifelong genetic disease in which mutated genes responsible for keratin production lead to extreme cell fragility. No treatments are currently approved in the USA or Europe.