Investor Centre

Australian pharmaceutical company Pharmaxis Ltd (ASX: PXS) and UK biotechnology company Synairgen plc (LSE: SNG) today announced they have entered into a research collaboration to develop a selective inhibitor to the lysyl oxidase type 2 enzyme (LOXL2) to treat the fatal lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

IPF affects in the region of 100,000 people in the US. Current products are expected to produce global revenues in excess of $1.1 billion by 2017.  The LOXL2 enzyme is being targeted because it is known to promote scar tissue which hardens and irreparably damages the lungs of IPF patients.  It is hoped that the inhibition of LOXL2 will slow the build-up of scar tissue and improve survival rates that are worse than for many cancers.  

The LOXL2 inhibitor program comes from the same Pharmaxis chemistry platform as the SSAO inhibitor that was recently acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim.  Under the terms of the agreement Synairgen will fund further activity of the program at Pharmaxis, use its BioBank and in vitro lung model platform, and collaborate with the IPF research team at the University of Southampton to complete pre-clinical and early clinical development. The IPF program will be managed by a joint steering committee through to the end of phase 1 or phase 2a clinical trials, at which time the collaboration will seek a license partner.  Pharmaxis and Synairgen will share any licensing revenues in accordance with the ratio of total investment by the two companies at that time. The share of licensing revenues is expected to be approximately equal for a compound licensed for IPF after early clinical development. Pharmaxis will continue to develop compounds outside the collaboration for other indications where LOXL2 inhibitors have shown potential such as liver and kidney fibrosis, and metastatic cancer.  The agreement does however allow for scenarios where the collaboration licenses its program for multiple indications.