Oncodesign and Servier reach milestone in Parkinson's collaboration

Independent drugmaker Servier and fellow France-based biotech Oncodesign (Euronext: ALONC) late Monday announced reaching an important milestone in their strategic partnership on potential drug candidates for Parkinson’s disease, news of which sent Oncodesign’s shares leaping 17% to 11.70 euros in early trading this morning.

In March 2019, Servier and Oncodesign entered into a research and development partnership involving the LRRK2 kinase inhibitors derived from Oncodesign's proprietary Nanocyclix platform, and their potential to act as therapeutic agents against Parkinson's disease. The partnership drew on the complementary expertise of Servier and Oncodesign in the fields of neurodegenerative diseases and macrocyclic kinase inhibitors.

The companies say they have reached a first important milestone in the program. Next steps, which are subject to further milestone payments, will validate the Nanocyclix platform to have the potential to deliver small-molecule drugs as therapeutics against Parkinson’s disease. Oncodesign receives a first success payment in the program of 1 million euros ($1.08 million). Over the life of the partnership, Servier could pay Oncodesign up to 320 million euros ($346 million) in milestones payments, excluding royalties. In addition, Oncodesign receives around 3 million euros in annual funding during the research phase of the project.

Results sooner than expected

Philippe Genne, chief executive and founder of Oncodesign, said: “Following the selection a few weeks ago of our first candidate drug inhibitor of RIPK2, this is very good news coming from our strategic collaboration with Servier. The collaboration works perfectly and both teams are up to the challenges. The results were obtained sooner than expected which allowed us to reach our first milestone several months in advance, showing more than ever the important mastery of the Nanocyclix chemistry by our teams. We are very honored to collaborate successfully with Servier.”