Servier inks oncology collaboration with Novartis

French independent drugmaker Laboratories Servier has signed a strategic global collaboration agreement with Novartis to develop and commercialize a series of novel drugs candidates issued from the Servier research programs partnered with Vernalis in oncology which are targeting the apoptosis regulation pathways.

The collaboration covers the worldwide co-development of BCL-2 selective inhibitor candidates that are now entering into clinical development. Proteins of the BCL-2 family are crucial regulators of apoptosis. Deregulations of this protein family play a major role in the aberrant survival of tumor cells.

This is the second collaboration between the two companies: in 2006 Novartis and Servier signed a licensing agreement for agomelatine, what was then a Phase III investigational drug for the treatment of major depressive disorder (The Pharma Letter April 3, 2006). The drug was approved in Europe in 2009.