Sun Pharmaceutical of India has signed a deal with an institute in Israel and one in Spain to develop treatments for neurological diseases like strokes and the brain cancer glioblastoma.
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| Sun Pharma managing director Dilip Shanghvi |
The Indian drugmaker signed the pact with Spain's Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science which has developed a recombinant enzyme that is currently undergoing animal tests. The enzyme is set to be tested further at the institute in Spain.
The companies said in a statement that the enzyme may be useful in treating other conditions and that Sun Pharma will have the first right to develop the enzyme for those other undisclosed treatments. Sun will have the exclusive option to further develop the enzyme once preclinical studies are complete and will retain global commercial rights.
Sun is also committed to fund "all future studies" on the enzyme.
In their statement, the companies said "one of the biggest benefits of this enzyme will be in the treatment of brain stroke." The enzyme, it continued, will help to dramatically cut the time it takes to start treating stroke patients because if the enzyme's tests are successful, "it will enable the immediate administration of the treatment by a paramedic while a patient is in transit to the hospital" and could help to "prevent the significant loss of brain function and avoid the debilitating consequences of stroke."
- here's the release (PDF)
- here's the report from NDTV