LEUVEN MINDGATE

Roche and reMYND enter into a strategic alliance to develop first-in-class disease-modifying treatments for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease


Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) and reMYND today announced that they have entered into an agreement to develop novel therapeutics that could slow down neurodegeneration in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients by inhibiting alpha-synuclein and tau toxicity.

The collaboration will focus on two of reMYND's pre-clinical small molecule programmes targeting alpha-synuclein and tau related pathologies in appropriate model systems as well as potential back-up classes. Roche and reMYND will form joint teams to progress the programmes towards clinical studies. Roche will provide input into chemistry, lead-optimisation and pre-clinical development, while reMYND will continue to conduct non-clinical pharmacology studies and further elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms. Roche will be responsible for all clinical development and worldwide commercialisation.

reMYND's compounds are unique because they inhibit alpha-synuclein neurotoxicity in Parkinson's disease and tau neurotoxicity in Alzheimer's disease. As such they are considered disease modifying, whilst most currently available treatments only treat the symptoms of the disease.

Commenting on the agreement, Dr Luca Santarelli, Head of Roche CNS said: 'The addition of these programmes strengthens and complements our existing research. We are excited to have licensed these novel compounds for our CNS pipeline because we believe that they offer a unique approach to combat Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. We are committed to bringing new drugs to the patients that suffer from these devastating neurodegenerative diseases.'

Gerard Griffioen, CSO of reMYND said: 'From our interactions with different foundations, key opinion leaders and pharmaceutical companies, we could sense that each of our pre-clinical lead programmes were among the most promising experimental treatments to slow down disease progression. Our most advanced compound in Parkinson's disease has demonstrated full inhibition of disease progression in pre-clinical models and could be the first treatment in clinical development for Parkinson's disease targeting alpha-synuclein-induced toxicity'.

Koen De Witte, Managing Director of reMYND added 'Our Alzheimer's tau programme represents perhaps a greater potential as it addresses one of the most fundamental aspects of the disease. We are very excited, both for our company and for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients, to have selected Roche as a partner to advance these programmes. We believe there is a strong fit between both companies because we both have a strong biology-driven approach and aim for first-in-class treatments. In addition, Roche's expertise in diagnostics will be crucial for maximising the chances of success along the long path of clinical development'.

Under the agreement, reMYND could receive over half a billion Euros in milestone payments, additional FTE payments and royalties on resulting net sales, potentially reaching a double-digit level.

According to the latest statistics from the WHO, there are currently around 35 million people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Parkinson's disease is the most common motor disorder, typically affecting the aged (65+) population. At present, about 0.1% to 0.2% of the Western population suffer from Parkinson's disease.

For more information, please contact:
Roche Partnering:
Sharon Valdettaro
Phone: +41 61 688 96 55
sharon.valdettaro@roche.com

USA:
Darien E. Wilson
Roche Public Affairs
Phone: +1 973 562-2232
darien_e.wilson@roche.com

reMYND NV:
Koen De Witte
Managing Director
Phone: +32 16 751416
koen.de.witte@remynd.com

About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2009, Roche had over 80'000 employees worldwide and invested almost 10 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 49.1 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan.
For more information: www.roche.com

About reMYND
reMYND, a spin-off company of Leuven University, Belgium, actively drives the develop-ment of disease-modifying treatments, either through its own Drug Discovery & Development (DDD) or as a Contract Research Organization (CRO).

reMYND's own Drug Discovery&Development (DDD) focuses entirely on disease-modi-fying treatments with the aim to decelerate - or even stop - cellular degeneration found in protein misfolding disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Diabetes and a long list of orphan diseases. As such, reMYND responds to a clear unmet medical need, as all marketed treatments and the majority of the products under development world-wide are aimed mainly to mitigate symptoms.
reMYND's pipeline consists primarily of 4 disease-modifying programs counteracting Tau-toxicity for AD and 2 counteracting á-synuclein toxicity for PD, with a recent addition of 2 programs counteracting IAPP-toxicity for Diabetes mellitus type II.

reMYND's CRO offers an extensive portfolio of preclinical in-vivo efficacy, pharmacoki¬netic and safety testing using its proprietary transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. reMYND's transgenics are based on the APP-London mutation, and include double-transgenic APPxPS1 and APPxTAU models. reMYND tests 3rd party treatments targeting primarily the â-amyloid pathway for Alzheimer's disease, and as such has pro¬vided in-vivo proof-of-concept data for several candidate drugs that reMYND's clients have currently in clinical development.

reMYND has been substantially supported by grants from IWT (Flanders, Belgium) and from the Michael J Fox Foundation. In 2009, reMYND received the 1st Award for Company with an Exceptional Relevance to Society.
For more information, see: www.reMYND.com

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