InterAx and Alveus develop active ingredient against obesity

(CONNECT) InterAx Biotech and Alveus Therapeutics, which has offices in Copenhagen and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, will jointly develop a differentiated small molecule drug candidate for metabolic diseases, initially for obesity. According to a press release, the two companies have concluded a license agreement for this purpose. It includes an upfront payment and future potential milestone payments of an undisclosed amount for development, approval and commercialization.

InterAx is making its deep signal discovery platform available for this project. It was developed to optimize the signal profile of drug candidates. InterAx investigates the effects of treatments on diseases before the start of preclinical studies. This analysis is traditionally not available for very early programs. Alveus contributes its extensive research and development expertise in obesity, diabetes and cardiometabolic diseases.

The joint drug candidate is intended to overcome the limitations of current obesity drugs, InterAx CEO Andrew Roberts is quoted as saying. "Our Deep Signal platform is specifically designed to deal with the complexity of GPCR signaling. Alveus' extensive metabolic expertise makes the company the ideal partner to bring this therapeutic drug candidate to patients."

G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs for short, are the largest family of membrane receptors that transmit extracellular signals such as hormones and neurotransmitters into the cell interior. The Deep Signal platform focuses on these GPCR small molecules and decodes complex biological processes by uncovering disease mechanisms at the level of cellular signaling.

"InterAx's unique platform integrates drug chemistry, protein structure, cellular signaling and therapeutic efficacy - the essential expertise for the effective and efficient development of highly differentiated candidates," said Jacob Jeppesen, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research and Development at Alveus. "We look forward to applying this unique approach in our joint program." ce/mm