The Grünenthal Group and Amura Therapeutics LTD (Cambridge, UK) have entered into a Collaboration Agreement. The focus of this collaboration is the development of protease inhibitors which play a key role in pain and inflammation, key focus areas in Grünenthal’s research-focused Strategic Business Unit Grünenthal Innovation.
Under the terms of the agreement Grünenthal and Amura will combine their respective expertise to collaborate on the development of cathepsin inhibitors to treat pain and inflammation. Starting from advanced lead compounds generated from Amura, Grünenthal will add its key expertise to the continued development of these small molecule drugs and assume responsibility for further research and development.
Grünenthal takes exclusive rights for worldwide clinical development, manufacturing and commercialisation of potential new pharmaceutical products arising from the collaboration. Grünenthal has made an undisclosed upfront payment, will make further milestone payments and is funding the costs under the running agreement.
“We are excited about this collaboration with Amura Therapeutics LTD. Our expertise, strength and innovative power in developing therapies for patients suffering from pain and inflammatory diseases hopefully will help these patients in the future as these are still areas of unmet medical need”, said Dr. Klaus-Dieter Langner, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Grünenthal Innovation.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr David Brown, Chairman of Amura, said “we are delighted to have entered into this exciting collaboration with Grünenthal, a global leader in developing treatments for pain. This Agreement provides confirmation of the scientific and commercial validity of Amura’s novel AMcore platform and we look forward to a fruitful partnership with Grünenthal and developing new medicines in an area of unmet medical need.”
