Origenis broadens drug discovery research alliance with Alcon

Alcon Research Limited (ARL) is an affiliate of Alcon Inc, an eye care company. The alliance combines Origenis’s capabilities in compound design, chemical synthesis, and screening with Alcon’s applied biology, pharmacology, and development expertise in ophthalmology.

Under the terms of the agreement, Alcon will retain the rights to any products for ophthalmic and nasal applications and Origenis will retain certain rights to all other uses of drug candidates discovered during the alliance. Alcon will make research payments to Origenis through a series of development milestones and royalties on sales.

Origenis employs its proprietary small molecule discovery platform MOREsystem to design, synthesize and characterize novel molecules acting against different targets. Origenis will deliver investigational new drug candidates with specific properties mainly for ophthalmic applications for certain Alcon targets.

John Yanni, vice president of discovery research at Alcon, said: “We have been very pleased with our relationship with Origenis, which has been a reliable partner that has provided us with value-added research in small molecules that we believe have promise in ophthalmology. We hope that the expansion of our relationship with Origenis will lead to even more candidates for development.”