Coley Pharmaceutical Group Inc announced that the company had received a $5 million milestone payment from Aventis. The payment was made in conjunction with Aventis' initiation of a phase I clinical study to evaluate the first of Coley's novel CpG-based TLR Therapeutics developed for use in the treatment of allergic respiratory disease.

In August 2001, Coley and Aventis entered into a $260 million product development and licensing collaboration for the development of first-in-class asthma and allergic rhinitis products based on Coley's novel CpG-based TLR Therapeutics. Through the collaboration, Aventis has obtained an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing license to develop CpG-based TLR Therapeutics in specific respiratory conditions, release from Coley said.

"We are pleased by the rapid progress of our collaboration with Aventis. This compound is the fourth Coley-discovered investigational drug to advance into clinical studies and the first to be aerosolized directly to the lung," said Robert L Bratzler, Coley's president and CEO. "The phase I trial will test dose and safety of this unique anti-allergy TLR Therapeutic in normal healthy volunteers, joining Coley's other clinical stage investigational drugs: ProMune for cancers, Actilon for hepatitis C and VaxImmune vaccine adjuvant. Each of Coley's CpG-based TLR Therapeutics acts through the Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) pathway, targeting and modulating immune responses to treat different human diseases. Preclinical pharmacology of this drug shows potent correction of the immunologic system imbalance characteristic of acute hypersensitivity disease," he added.

Allergic respiratory diseases such as asthma may occur when the immune system mounts a heightened response to normally harmless foreign allergens, such as house dust, plant pollen or pet dander. These hypersensitivities occur because the immune system reacts pathologically to normally harmless materials, the mechanisms for which include immune type 2 inflammatory responses, IgE antibodies, various cytokines and chemokines. The TLR Therapeutic compound selected for Phase I study is designed to redirect aberrant immune reactions to allergens by TLR9 activation of dendritic cells and B cells, redirecting the Th2 immune response to a natural and safe Th1 immune response, the release adds.