By John Vandermosten, CFA
NYSE:PLX
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Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE:PLX) announced a collaboration with the Germany-based Secarna Pharmaceuticals to develop novel antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapies using Secarna’s OligoCreator platform. The arrangement will seek pharmaceutical candidates for rare renal indications. Details of the arrangement were provided in a December 17th press release.
Secarna Pharmaceuticals is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered therapeutics development company with two platforms and a pipeline of assets focused on discovery and investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies. It has several partners including Lipigon Pharmaceuticals, Denali Therapeutics, Curie Bio, SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals and Evotec/Bristol Myers Squibb that are developing their own products using Secarna’s platforms. The most advanced of the partner projects is Lipigon’s Phase II Lipisense asset.
Secarna offers its OligoCreator platform which uses AI to discover and develop oligonucleotides for use in a variety of organs and tissues to address untreatable conditions. The platform offers a safety and efficacy testing system that characterizes the risk profile of a candidate and identifies a broad therapeutic window for a drug candidate. It provides a variety of chemical oligonucleotide modifications that enable calibration of drug properties such as reduction of immune-stimulatory potential or off-target toxicities. OligoCreator further combines AI bioinformatics with wet lab data to refine predictive algorithms. Over 50 projects have been conducted to optimize the in-silico selection strategy.
Exhibit I – Secarna’s OligoCreator Platform
Source: Secarna Website
Protalix plans to use the collaboration and platform to identify several new candidates as the relationship matures. No money has yet changed hands; however, Protalix will pay for the collaborative research. If a candidate shows promise, Protalix plans to obtain intellectual property protection for the asset before disclosing the molecule and indication. In terms of the financial design of the arrangement, there will be milestones during the development stage which are minimal until pivotal studies are complete. If commercialized, Protalix will pay royalties on sales to Secarna. We think this broadens Protalix’ pipeline at the very early discovery stage and can be executed at negligible cost.
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