ProMetic Life Sciences Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, has entered into a strategic partnership with ProThera Biologics Inc. (ProThera), a biotechnology company, for the development and commercialisation of human plasma-derived inter-alpha inhibitor proteins. The agreements provide ProMetic with global, exclusive intellectual property rights to commercialise products for two clinical indications and both companies have strategic interest in the other’s IAIP-related therapeutic areas through a royalty- bearing cross-license agreement.

Under the terms of the deal, ProMetic and ProThera each will perform development services in order to advance IAIP to the clinic by 2017. ProMetic has received an initial 11.25 per cent equity stake in ProThera and such equity position to be increased to 22.5 per cent following the achievement of an early-stage development milestone. Further, ProMetic will exclusively manufacture IAIP for clinical trial requirements and commercial sales for all indications.

“We are very pleased to be collaborating with ProThera on the development of IAIP. The combination of our proprietary PPPSTM manufacturing platform and clinical development expertise with ProThera’s world-class understanding of IAIP and unique intellectual property will contribute to the successful development and commercialisation of this plasma-derived protein,” commented Pierre Laurin, president and CEO of ProMetic.

“We look forward to pursuing multiple unmet medical needs to be treated with IAIP by both ProMetic and ProThera”

Dr. Yow-Pin Lim, CEO of ProThera, commented, “Accessing ProMetic’s proprietary manufacturing platform to produce high quality plasma-derived therapeutics and ProMetic’s deep industry knowledge were key factors in our decision to partner our IAIP intellectual property and technological expertise. We look forward to ProMetic joining ProThera as an equity and strategic commercialization partner and believe this will accelerate the development of our mutual IAIP clinical programmes.”

“This partnership fits well with our corporate strategy of maximizing the revenue output from every liter of plasma processed under our proprietary platform as well as with our goal of becoming a major player in the development and marketing of niche, high-value orphan drugs,” stated Bruce Pritchard, chief operating officer of ProMetic.

IAIP are a family of naturally occurring proteins found in high concentration in human plasma and play an important role in the regulation of host immune response. Research shows that IAIP play a key role in fighting acute inflammatory diseases including whole-body inflammation (shock syndrome or sepsis), due to infection, trauma or injury. IAIP exert their effects through multiple anti-inflammatory pathways, but importantly they function by binding to, and neutralizing, the toxic effects of extracellular histones released from dying cells. There is now a broad and growing recognition that IAIP are one of the body’s first lines of defense against severe inflammation and they serve as important immunomodulators. IAIP treatment has been shown to be effective in many pre-clinical models of acute inflammatory disease and decreased IAIP levels in patients correlate with increased morbidity and mortality for multiple diseases.