Merck is betting on Aqilion’s work on a small molecule inhibitor for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including neurological diseases.
AQILION AB (publ) announced today that it has strengthened its pipeline with an innovative development program in the field of chronic inflammation. With this acquisition, Aqilion is taking over all rights to the program, now under the name Regulus, from LEO Pharma. The project is ready for clinical trials and Aqilion plans to begin clinical development in 2022.
During its journey of change, Aqilion has transitioned from being a company that invested in startup companies to launching wholly owned projects with potential to break new ground in the development of innovative therapies. The company is focusing on novel therapies for patients with diseases primarily in the field of inflammation. Under this business model, Aqilion will run these internal projects from preclinical phase to early clinical development, when larger pharmaceutical companies may be interested in acquiring them. One part of the Aqilion strategy entails greater focus on certain disease areas. The choice has fallen to diseases where inflammation is an important component of the disease mechanism.
Glactone Pharma AB was founded in 2012 as a project company within what was then known as Partners för Utvecklingsinvesteringar inom Life Sciences, P.U.L.S. AB, now known as AQILION AB. Glactone Pharma develops innovative new drug candidates for treatment of late-stage prostate cancer (castration-resistant prostate cancer). The innovators’ idea is based on a naturally occurring molecule that has been shown to bind to and block STAT3, which is overactive in cancer cells, and contributes to the unrestrained growth of castration-resistant prostate cancer cells. Since STAT3 is involved in many of the central disease processes in cancer, STAT3 blocking is considered to be one of the most promising new methods for treating various types of cancer.