Sosei Subsidiaries Heptares and Jitsubo to Develop Novel GPCR-Targeting Peptide Candidates for Severe Gastro-Intestinal Disorders

Sosei Group Corporation (“Sosei”; TSE Mothers Index: 4565) announces that its subsidiaries, Heptares Therapeutics (“Heptares”) and Jitsubo Co., Ltd. (“Jitsubo”), have entered into a collaboration to develop novel peptide candidates designed to target a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) implicated in severe gastro-intestinal (GI) disorders. This
represents the first strategic collaboration between Sosei subsidiaries, highlighting the complementary platforms at its disposal for the discovery and development of a sustainable pipeline of innovative therapeutics targeting diseases with unmet need.
Under the collaboration, Jitsubo will apply its Peptune^TM and
Molecular Hiving^TM peptide engineering technologies and
medicinal chemistry capabilities to a GPCR target selected by both
Jitsubo and Heptares. Heptares has significant insights into the 3D
structure of the receptor via its proprietary StaR^® platform.
The target GPCR plays an important role in several GI indications and is
currently in discovery phase. Heptares will be responsible for
development and commercialisation of any peptide candidates that emerge
from the collaboration, and will make payments to Jitsubo on achievement
of agreed milestones, plus royalties on future sales of any resulting
products. No further details are disclosed.
Yusuke Kohno, CEO and co-founder of Jitsubo, said: “Heptares’ StaR^®
proteins provide an ideal model to apply Jitsubo’s proprietary peptide
design and engineering capabilities. We are delighted to begin this
first collaboration with Heptares that has the potential to demonstrate
the combined power of our platforms for creating novel and highly
selective peptide therapeutics targeting important protein receptors.”
Fiona Marshall, Chief Scientific Officer at Heptares and Chief
Scientific Officer at Sosei, added: “There are a significant number of
GPCRs with strong biological and clinical validation for their role in
disease, and whose functions are modulated by peptides. This
collaboration, which brings together the complementary platforms of
Heptares and Jitsubo, provides an exciting opportunity for Heptares to
expand its proprietary pipeline of novel small molecule therapeutics and
biologics. We are particularly keen to leverage this collaboration to
generate new peptide drug candidates that Heptares can develop itself.”
Peter Bains, Representative Executive Officer, CEO at Sosei, added:
“Sosei has built a strong foundation of enabling technologies through
M&A over recent years and is focused on leveraging these to deliver a
sustainable flow of new drug candidates into our proprietary pipeline.
We are very pleased therefore to see this first collaboration between
Jitsubo and Heptares, which demonstrates the complementarity of their
innovative platforms, and we look forward to seeing this programme
advance.”
Notes to Editors
About Heptares Therapeutics
Heptares is a clinical-stage
company creating transformative medicines targeting G protein-coupled
receptors (GPCRs), a superfamily of 375 receptors linked to a wide range
of human diseases. Heptares’ proprietary StaR® technology and
structure-based drug design (SBDD) capabilities enable us to engineer
and develop drugs for highly validated, yet historically undruggable or
challenging GPCRs. Using this approach, we are building an exciting
pipeline of new medicines (small molecules and biologics) with the
potential to transform the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,
schizophrenia, cancer immune-oncology, migraine, addiction, metabolic
disease and other indications. We have partnerships for our novel
candidates and technologies with leading pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies, including Allergan, AstraZeneca, Kymab,
MedImmune, MorphoSys, Pfizer and Teva.
Heptares is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation. For
more information, please visit www.heptares.com
and www.sosei.com.
About Jitsubo Co., Ltd.
Jitsubo has a mission to contribute
to the well-being of society through innovative peptide therapeutics and
is aiming to become a world class R&D-focused pharmaceutical company
that provides solutions to patients using its proprietary
peptide-related technologies. Our goals are to address unmet medical
needs and administer to the sustainable development of medical care. We
pursue these objectives through Molecular Hiving™ (a novel technology to
synthesize peptides in high-quality and at lower costs compared to
existing methods) and Peptune™ (a peptide structure engineering
technology that develops focused peptide libraries during drug
discovery).
Jitsubo was acquired by the Sosei Group, an
international biopharmaceutical drug development company, in December
2014, and enjoys invaluable support in both R&D and global network.
For further information, please visit https://www.jitsubo.com/en/
About Sosei
Sosei is a biopharmaceutical company originating
from Japan but with global presence. Sosei’s primary business model is
based on identifying novel and/or differentiated product assets or
technology platforms and, through supporting these in preclinical and
clinical development and establishing commercial partnerships, advancing
new medicines to patients worldwide.
For further information about Sosei, please visit www.sosei.com/en.
Forward-looking statements
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