BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Pharmaxon has signed two license agreements with the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS), the University of Aix-Marseille II, the University Medical Center of Hamburg-Eppendorf and the Danish company Schafer-N, of Copenhagen.

One grants Pharmaxon, of Marseille, France, an exclusive worldwide license for polysialic acid (PSA) mimetic peptides and their therapeutic applications, while the other gives it an exclusive worldwide sublicense related to the same patent from an undisclosed international pharmaceutical company.

Pharmaxon, which was incorporated in September 2004 as a spin-off from the Development Biology Institute of Marseille-Luminy, is developing compounds that target neuroplasticity, the term for the nerve cell's spontaneous ability to build up and/or modify intercellular connections after nervous system trauma or during neurodegenerative diseases in order to recreate new and functional neuronal networks.

The company has two classes of cell mobility products under development for the treatment of nervous system lesions, degenerative diseases and cancer. One is cell mobility activators (compounds stimulating neuroplasticity), which enhance neuronal regrowth and migration. The initial target indications for those products are acute spinal cord injury and moderate cognitive disorders, particularly those associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The second is cell mobility inhibitors (pro-adhesive compounds), which promote cell adhesion with a view to blocking tumor development and metastasis, and the primary application of those products is in the treatment of glioblastoma.

For CEO Pascal Deschaseaux, those agreements "validate Pharmaxon's technological approach and business model."

According to the company's co-founder and Chief Operations Officer Jean-Chrétien Norreel, Pharmaxon is exploiting a "breakthrough" technology, since its "therapeutic strategy had been technically out of reach for a long time and was limited to genetic or enzymatic approaches, which were often difficult to implement."

Pharmaxon established the mechanism of action of cell mobility activators in animal models of spinal cord injury and aging, and the company plans to launch an initial clinical trial in humans in the indication of spinal cord injury in 2008.