Biotie Therapies (OMXH: BTH1V) said this morning that Roche (SIX: ROG) has decided against utilizing its one-time option to license SYN120. The drug candidate is a 5-HT6 antagonist targeting cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia. This means Biotie will be left without a substantial milestone payment and now plans to seek an alternative partner to develop the compound more.
Biotie’s CEO Timo Veromaa claimed Roche’s decision was due to strategic portfolio reasons and said it has already received interest from a ”number of reputable companies” and is thus confident of finding a new high quality partner. Back in 2010, when a similar thing took place concerning VAP-1 (BTT-1023), Biotie said essentially a similar thing, although it did not claim it had already been contacted about the product. Now two years on, it is getting ready to go forward with development of the said product, a fully human monoclonal antibody, on its own. Biotie has an upcoming catalyst regarding its lead product candidate Selincro or Nalmefene due shortly.
No comments:
Post a Comment