Isis in eye treatment collaboration with Pfizer

Under the terms of the agreement, Isis will receive a technology access fee of $1 million, research funding, and milestone payments. In addition, Isis will receive royalties on the sale of drugs resulting from the collaboration.

Using Isis’ proprietary second-generation antisense platform, the two companies will work together to identify antisense drugs against targets selected by Pfizer.

Pfizer will be responsible for clinical development and commercialization of the antisense drugs. The leading pharmaceuticals group may develop the antisense drugs identified in the collaboration for all human health indications.

“Because the antisense technology platform that Isis has pioneered allows us to very rapidly discover highly selective drugs to almost any gene target, we are able not only to keep our own pipeline full, but also provide drug candidates to partners,” said Dr Frank Bennett, Isis’ vice president of antisense research.

Isis has already announced encouraging results from multiple preclinical studies using second-generation antisense drugs to improve a variety of symptoms in rodent models of asthma and chronic lung inflammation. The data demonstrate the efficacy of antisense drugs in vivo and the potential of antisense inhibitors to be used as inhaled therapeutics for inflammatory diseases of the lung.

This recent study complements the recent advancement of Isis’ first drug to be delivered by aerosol administration into development, ISIS 369645, a second-generation antisense inhibitor of IL4-receptor-alpha to treat chronic asthma.