Inflammatory research shaped by personalised therapies
Date of publication: April 13, 2010
Rigel Pharma's influence of shaping the future of inflammatory therapy has been highlighted again with the announcement that it has signed a $1.25 billion licensing agreement with Astra Zeneca for fostamatinib disodium. See this illustrated on our Partnering Scorecard
This compound is currently in late stage development and could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
In addition, the therapeutic benefits offered by fostamatinib disodium could be a significant value to patients whose conditions have been resistant to traditional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, such as methotrexate.
New treatments that offer significant therapeutic improvement to patients who suffer from these inflammatory disorders will significantly improve quality of life.
Furthermore, this treatment could be proved to be even more effective in the field of personalised medicine if combined with the development of a predictive biomarker that could identify patients who are unlikely to respond to the traditional arthritic therapies.
This approach has been pursued recently for the personalised treatment of cancer therapies by Quigen who has recently licensed from DxS a predictive biomarker for lung, breast and colorectal cancer by identifying mutations in the PI3K oncogene.
The licensing deal announced by Rigel with Astra Zeneca follows a number of collaborations announced recently with big pharma where there is an upfront payment included as part of the terms of the deals.
These ongoing announcements demonstrate Rigel's commitment to developing new therapies within this field and the continued ability to successfully partner with big pharma on a regular basis.
Tim Martin
April 2010