The milestone was related to progress in the preclinical development of MEM 63908, the second named development candidate in the company’s nicotinic alpha-7 agonist program.
A number of lines of evidence suggest that partial agonists at the nicotinic alpha-7 receptor could have a variety of uses in addressing important diseases of the central nervous system, including Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.
Under the terms of the companies’ 2006 nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonist collaboration agreement, Memory Pharmaceuticals granted Roche an exclusive worldwide license to its intellectual property on nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonist compounds.
In addition to the approximately $2.3 million in research funding for 2007, Memory Pharmaceuticals will be eligible to receive milestone payments upon the achievement of development, regulatory and sales events for drug candidates that progress under the collaboration. MEM 3454 remains under the terms of the original 2003 option agreement with Roche.
“Roche has confirmed that MEM 63908 represents a promising development candidate, and we look forward to working with our partner to move this compound into the clinic and identifying and optimizing other lead candidates from the nicotinic alpha-7 agonist program,” said Dr David Lowe, chief scientific officer of Memory Pharmaceuticals.