Eli Lilly secures exclusive rights to chronic pain treatment
American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has secured an exclusive licence for a non-opioid, non-addictive chronic pain treatment from Boston-based biotech company Centrexion Therapeutics.
Eli Lilly, whose leading products include insulin treatments such as Humalin and Humalog, made the announcement in a press release on Friday, May 28.
The company will pay Centrexion $47.5 million for exclusive worldwide rights to CNTX-0290, an agonist which binds to the somatostatin receptor type 4 (SSRT4) protein.
The drug is currently in phase one of clinical testing as a potential non-opioid treatment for chronic pain. Eli Lilly may also pay up to $575 million in potential development and regulatory milestones.
According to the release, the two companies will retain the option to co-promote CNTX-0290 in the US at a later date.
Mark Mintun, vice president of pain and neurodegeneration research at Eli Lilly, said that the company was “pleased to license this early-phase molecule from Centrexion, and look forward to developing it further as a potential non-opioid treatment option for multiple pain conditions”.
Jeffrey Kindler, CEO of Centrexion, said that “this collaboration marks an important step for Centrexion in the progress of its pipeline and demonstrates our ability to identify promising early stage assets working at new targets for chronic pain and efficiently take them through to development”.
Kindler continued: “Lilly's robust pain management portfolio and successful track record developing and commercialising novel therapies make them an ideal company to advance CNTX-0290.”
Centrexion was established in 2013 and focuses principally on developing new non-opioid pain treatments.
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