Debiopharm and Aurigene select development candidate under cancer drug collaboration

Swiss independent drug developer Debiopharm and private Indian biotech firm Aurigene Discovery Technologies (which is owned by drug major Dr Reddy’s) announced the successful nomination of a development candidate, Debio 0617, a novel inhibitor of an undisclosed oncology pathway to which it acquired rights in 2008. Debio 0617 has started Investigational New Drug 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 commercialize 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.

"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