LDC and Qurient sign licence agreement to advance CDK7 inhibitors for the treatment of cancer

The Lead Discovery Center (LDC) and Qurient have signed a licence deal providing Qurient with exclusive worldwide rights to a series of highly-selective CDK7 inhibitors discovered for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and viral infections.

The partners will closely collaborate to advance the approach from the validated lead stage into clinical development. Upon successful proof-of-concept in humans they will jointly identify a suitable partner for follow-on licensing.

This agreement is the starting point of a broader drug discovery and development alliance between LDC and Qurient

The agreement on CDK7 is the second licensing deal between LDC, Max Planck Innovation and Qurient and the starting point of a broader alliance between the partners. Expanding on the success of their ongoing collaboration on Axl kinase inhibitors initiated in 2013, both sides have agreed to join forces for the development of selected further projects from the LDC’s portfolio in the fields of oncology and inflammation. The partners will closely work together, from project identification through to clinical proof-of-concept and subsequent sublicensing, with the LDC leading drug discovery and optimisation and Qurient guiding preclinical and clinical development, typically until completion of Phase II.

“It is an exciting moment for Qurient to have LDC as an upstream partner, providing innovative drug discovery programmes to our ‘lead-to-clinical POC’ pipelines,” says Dr Kiyean Nam, CEO of Qurient. “As being shown in the Axl inhibitor programme, we will join forces to achieve exceptional science and operational excellence until the programme reaches mutually beneficial end point.”  

“The partnership with Qurient is an essential part of our strategy to create versatile opportunities for accelerating the transfer of our leads into biopharmaceutical development,” says Dr Bert Klebl, CEO of the LDC. “Qurient combines first-class development expertise with an exceptional commitment to moving innovative projects forward. Together, we can advance our projects swiftly into the clinic and benefit from the dynamic financial environment for biotech companies in South Korea.”