Pierre Fabre and Addex sign early-stage agreement in CNS field

Addex Therapeutics has granted an option to license its metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 3 (mGlu3 receptor) programme to Pierre Fabre Pharmaceuticals, a laboratory with a proven track-record in discovering, developing and marketing products in the field of Central Nervous System (CNS).

“This agreement confirms our strong and continued interest in the CNS field to develop therapies addressing critical global health problems”, commented Laurent Audoly, Head of Pierre Fabre R&D, “Pierre Fabre is committed to developing such early stage collaborations to capitalise on its long-standing preclinical and clinical experience in the CNS field to create value and win-win scenarios with our partners.”

“We are delighted to be working with Pierre Fabre and their CNS discovery group which has a strong track record in CNS drug discovery,” said Robert Lütjens, Head of Discovery of Addex. “mGlu3 receptor represents an exciting novel target and we look forward to rapidly advancing this programme.”

Addex has identified compounds that could be useful for the treatment of CNS disorders

Using its proprietary allosteric modulator discovery platform, Addex has been able to identify unique mGlu3 receptor positive and negative allosteric modulators. These compounds, although still at an early stage, represent excellent starting points for chemical optimisation, and have a great potential to become first-in-class molecules useful for the treatment of CNS disorders involving an imbalance in mGlu3 receptor signalling. Under the terms of the agreement, Pierre Fabre will conduct chemistry, pharmacology and ADME, while Addex will support the project with its proprietary in vitro pharmacological assay platform.

Allosteric modulators are an emerging class of small molecule drugs which have the potential to be more specific and confer significant therapeutic advantages over conventional “orthosteric” small molecule or biological drugs. Addex allosteric modulator drug discovery platform targets receptors and other proteins that are recognised as essential for therapeutic intervention.

Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.