Autifony Partners with Jazz Pharma For Neurological Treatments

Autifony Therapeutics Limited (Autifony), a company that is pioneering the development of novel pharmaceutical treatments for rare CNS disorders and other serious brain diseases, announced a $770.5 million exclusive global licensing agreement with Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (Jazz) to discover and develop drug candidates targeting two different ion channel targets associated with neurological disorders.Autifony will lead drug discovery and preclinical development activities on the two targets. Subsequent to successful completion of such preclinical development, Jazz will lead all clinical development manufacturing and regulatory activities and commercialization, as per pharmabiz.Autifony will get an upfront payment from Jazz as well as development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments across the two programs, according to the terms of the deal. The entire amount of the upfront and milestone payments is up to $770.5 million. Autifony is also eligible for future net sales royalties.Dr Charles Large, chief executive officer of Autifony Therapeutics, commented: “We are excited to be working with Jazz Pharmaceuticals on two novel ion channel targets, on which we can bring to bear Autifony’s long standing expertise in small molecule ion channel drug discovery and development. Jazz has an exceptional track record of rapidly advancing neuroscience development programmes and effectively commercializing novel therapies that offer improvements over current standards of care. These programmes have the potential to bring ground-breaking benefits to patients in a range of indications.”Autifony is developing a pipeline of small molecule modulators that selectively target certain subtypes of ion channels by utilizing its pioneering scientific knowledge and patented ion channel drug development platform.