Galenea and Otsuka extend schizophrenia research collaboration

The USA's Galenea and Japan's Otsuka Pharmaceutical plan to further extend their R&D collaboration through 2011. This latest extension increases the term of the deal to seven years and brings the total committed funding to around $90 million.

Under the terms of the new accord, Otsuka will have exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize development candidates generated during the collaboration. Galenea will receive milestone and royalty payments, or alternatively may participate in profit-sharing.

The companies have been working together since January 2005 with the goal of discovering and developing first-in-class therapies for schizophrenia and other central nervous system (CNS) diseases based on the calcineurin pathway. The agreement was previously extended for one year in October 2008.

"We have seen substantial progress toward our goal of identifying clinical development candidates with new mechanisms of action for the treatment of schizophrenia," commented Taro Iwamoto, president and representative director of Otsuka Pharmaceutical. "Through this collaboration with Galenea, we hope to enhance our research in the CNS [central nervous system] field by taking advantage of their unconventional point of view and scientific approach. Our goal for this collaboration is the contribution of new therapies to patients in need. These innovative new therapies will add to our CNS portfolio which includes our antipsychotic agent and other compounds in earlier phases of development," added Dr Iwamoto.

The two companies say they have made significant advances in several projects within the collaboration, including the progression of several molecules to the late lead optimization stage. Each project represents a potential therapeutic with a novel mechanism of action for treating many common symptoms in schizophrenia and related disorders. Galenea intends to deliver a clinical development candidate to Otsuka next year.