Licensing and collaboration agreement signed for addiction treatment

Addex Therapeutics has signed a licensing and collaboration agreement with Indivior to accelerate the global development and commercialisation of its addiction treatment, ADX71441.

ADX71441 is a potent, selective positive allosteric modulator (PAM) that potentiates GABA responses at the GABAB receptor. In addition, Indivior will fund a research programme at Addex to discover additional GABAB PAM compounds.

“As a world leader in developing and commercialising treatments for addiction, Indivior is the perfect partner to continue development of ADX71441 which has shown potential in several preclinical models of addiction,” commented Tim Dyer, CEO at Addex. “This agreement is part of our ongoing strategy to secure resources to advance certain assets of our broad allosteric modulator pipeline with leading players in key markets.”

“The development of ADX71441 illustrates the power of Addex's allosteric technology to discover new small molecules that are able to modulate precisely the activity of a receptor so that beneficial attributes are accentuated,” emphasized Robert Lütjens, PhD, head of Discovery at Addex. “We are excited by the research program as it provides us with the opportunity to explore further the utility of GABAB PAM, a well validated therapeutic target.”

Under the terms of the agreement, will receive $5 million upfront, $4 million of committed research funding over the next two years, $330 million of potential development, regulatory and commercialisation milestones and tiered royalties up to double-digit. Additionally, it will retain the right to select compounds from the research collaboration for certain indications outside addiction.