Curis, Inc, a drug development company focused on developing proprietary targeted medicines for cancer treatment and Debiopharm Group (Debiopharm), a group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs have entered into a worldwide, exclusive license agreement for Curis' Heat Shock Protein (Hsp90) technology, including CUDC-305, the company's lead Hsp90 inhibitor candidate.
Under the terms of the agreement, Debiopharm will assume all future development responsibility and incur all future costs related to the licensed Hsp90 technology, including CUDC-305. Curis currently expects that Debiopharm will file an application with health authorities to begin phase-I clinical testing for CUDC-305 in Fall 2009. Curis will receive an up-front license fee and, pending approval of such application, Curis will receive additional near-term payments. Curis is further eligible to receive additional contingent payments assuming the successful achievement of specified clinical development and regulatory approval objectives as well as royalties on product sales, if any, on any products that are successfully commercialised by Debiopharm or its sublicensees.
"We are very pleased to have entered into this license agreement with Debiopharm. We have been highly impressed with the depth of Debiopharm's development expertise and commitment to working with our team to create an optimum clinical development plan for our novel drug candidate, CUDC-305, which we believe may offer future benefit to cancer patients," said Dan Passeri, Curis president and chief executive officer. "This transaction is particularly important to Curis because the agreement provides non-dilutive capital that we expect will allow us to continue to seek to internally develop CUDC-101, our first-in-class HDAC/EGFR/Her2 inhibitor that is currently enrolling patients in a phase-I dose escalation trial, as well as our other promising preclinical multi-targeted development programs. We believe that the up-front license fee and near-term contingent payments will extend our cash runway well into 2011."
"We expect additional data during the second half of 2010 from our collaborator Genentech's ongoing phase-II clinical trials of GDC-0449, a Hedgehog Pathway Inhibitor, in advanced basal cell carcinoma, metastatic colorectal cancer and advanced ovarian cancer," said Michael Gray, Curis' chief operating and chief financial officer. "Positive results with GDC-0449 in any of these indications have the potential to be a significant value-creating event for Curis stockholders and could provide future milestone payments to further extend our cash runway and fund our further investment in our multi-targeted inhibitor programs, including CUDC-101."
"Debiopharm Group is very excited about this new opportunity. Curis has established its excellence in this type of targeted therapy, which has the potential of being effective in several cancer indications, alone or in combination with other drugs," said Rolland-Yves Mauvernay, president and founder of Debiopharm Group, who added, "The professionalism of the entire Curis team has made us very confident that the partnership would soon prove successful for the two parties and open the door to an outstanding cooperation to bring new and effective therapies to patients."
Debiopharm Group is a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs.
Curis is a drug development company that is committed to leveraging its innovative signalling pathway drug technologies to seek to create new medicines for cancer indications.