(Alliance News) - C4X Discovery Holdings PLC on Monday signed an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Sanofi SA for C4XD's oral pre-clinical IL-17A inhibitor programme.
Shares in the drug development firm were 12% higher in London on Monday morning at 44.85 pence each.
Under the terms of the agreement, C4XD will receive an upfront payment of EUR7 million and could receive up to a further EUR407 million in potential development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones, of which EUR11 million is in pre-clinical milestones, in addition to single-digit royalties.
"Under the license, Sanofi will develop and commercialise an oral therapy for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, a multi-billion dollar market," C4X explained.
It continued: "The IL-17 family of cytokines are strong inducers of inflammation and are implicated in a variety of autoimmune diseases including psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis."
C4X noted the current treatments targeting IL-17 are monoclonal antibodies administered via an injection.
The company continued: "There is an urgent need for safe and efficacious oral small molecule therapies to increase the number of patients able to access IL-17 targeted drugs and expand availability into new inflammatory disease indications."
Clive Dix, chief executive officer of C4X Discovery, said he is "proud" to be working with Sanofi.
Dix continued: "While antibody therapies have demonstrated the potential of IL-17 inhibition in the generation of highly effective treatments, the injectable route means many patients currently do not have access to the medicines that can change their lives.
"We believe that our small molecule programme has the potential to create high value, efficacious and convenient oral IL-17 therapeutics for this large market. The psoriasis market alone is estimated to be worth about USD24 billion per annum by 2027, and when combined with Sanofi's development expertise our programme has the potential to address a number of indications."
Separately Monday, Sanofi announced a EUR400 million investment over five years to create a unique vaccine production centre in Singapore.
In partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board, the new site will mainly supply the Asian region and complement existing manufacturing capacities in Europe & North America.
The project is currently entering its design phase with construction expected to begin in the third quarter of 2021. The five-year project will see the site fully operational in the first quarter of 2026 once all qualifications and validations of the first manufactured vaccine have been completed.
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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