Avlar Bioventures and Excalibur Fund Managers, the UK based life science venture capital groups and ERGOMED Group, an international provider of drug development services announced today that the planned recruitment of 120 patients has completed on schedule in the Phase II study with Oral BVT.115959 – a novel A2A agonist in diabetic neuropathic pain. Avlar Bioventures […]
Avlar Bioventures and Excalibur Fund Managers, the UK based life science venture capital groups and ERGOMED Group, an international provider of drug development services announced today that the planned recruitment of 120 patients has completed on schedule in the Phase II study with Oral BVT.115959 – a novel A2A agonist in diabetic neuropathic pain. Avlar Bioventures and Excalibur Fund Managers, the UK based life science venture capital groups and ERGOMED Group, an international provider of drug development services announced today that the planned recruitment of 120 patients has completed on schedule in the Phase II study with Oral BVT.115959 – a novel A2A agonist in diabetic neuropathic pain. Avlar Bioventures and Excalibur Fund Managers, the UK based life science venture capital groups and ERGOMED Group, an international provider of drug development services announced today that the planned recruitment of 120 patients has completed on schedule in the Phase II study with Oral BVT.115959 – a novel A2A agonist in diabetic neuropathic pain. Avlar Bioventures and Excalibur Fund Managers, the UK based life science venture capital groups and ERGOMED Group, an international provider of drug development services announced today that the planned recruitment of 120 patients has completed on schedule in the Phase II study with Oral BVT.115959 – a novel A2A agonist in diabetic neuropathic pain.
Results from the study will be announced in mid-2012 and the parties will then be seeking to out-licence the compound for further development and commercialisation.
The ongoing clinical study builds on the previously successful clinical trial of the compound in diabetic neuropathic pain, which revealed that patients taking certain medication to control hypertension experienced a large and significant benefit from dosing with the Compound.
Alan Goodman, Director of CBT Development and Dr. Miroslav Reljanovic, CEO of ERGOMED Group commented: “We are very pleased with the progress in the Phase II trial for Oral BVT.115959. There is a clear need for new treatments for neuropathic pain and the market is forecast to grow to at least $5 billion by 2015. We are looking forward to completing recruitment and sharing the results with potential partners and licensees.”
Notes for Editors
Avlar and Excalibur have formed a new virtual company called CBT Development Limited on behalf of their funds and other shareholders. CBT Development owns all rights to the Compound and will work with ERGOMED Group on the clinical development. They will also lead the commercialisation of the product.
At the same time the parties entered into a Revenue Sharing and Co-development Agreement (“the Agreement”) whereby the parties will collaborate on the clinical development and commercialisation of the Compound
Under the Agreement, CBT Development and ERGOMED Group will work together with the goal of demonstrating that the Compound can provide sustained pain relief to improve treatment in diabetic neuropathic pain in patients on stable anti-hypertensive medication. If successful in this study the parties believe that the Compound can be tested in wider neuropathic pain patient groups. Both parties will invest their respective expert internal resources. Under the terms of the Agreement, ERGOMED Group is entitled to a share of commercial revenues generated from the compound.
About Avlar Bioventures
Avlar is a specialist biotechnology venture capital company and is the manager of Avlar BioVentures Fund I, Avlar BioVentures Fund II and The Cambridge Gateway Fund. All three funds are focused on seed and early stage investments and are used to invest in emerging bioscience technologies. Avlar’s approach to investment is very much ‘hands on’, working intensively with companies in the critical stages of development from pre-formation to second round of financing, applying its strategic, entrepreneurial and biotech industry skills.
About Excalibur Fund Managers
Excalibur Fund Managers is a specialised venture investor in and founder of high growth life sciences companies managing and advising two funds, Merlin Biosciences Fund II and Merlin Biosciences Fund III. Excalibur invests in companies that are bringing to market human medicines or medical devices with groundbreaking technology and significant commercial potential. Since 1997, Excalibur has participated in the funding of 34 European biotechnology and life science companies on behalf of its investment partnerships.
Excalibur has built a reputation for being an exceptional partner for management teams who can create substantial value for investors.
Excalibur is chaired by Professor Sir Chris Evans and has achieved a number of notable exits for its funds. These include Vectura PLC, BioVex and Plramed. All of which secured start-up and growth capital funding from the Merlin Bioscience funds. Vectura is listed on the London Stock Exchange and currently valued at c£200m, BioVex was sold to Amgen for $1 billion and Plramed was sold to Roche for $185 million.
About ERGOMED Group – www.ergomedgroup.com
ERGOMED Group is a specialised international clinical development company offering contract clinical research and co-development partnerships to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide in a wide variety of indications and medical devices including neurology, oncology and immunology. ERGOMED Group approach to clinical research ensures effective patient recruitment, reducing the time and costs of clinical trials and complementing the drug discovery capabilities of its customers and partners. The Company has a dual business model offering standard clinical trial management contracts and also co-development partnerships to share the risks and rewards of clinical development. ERGOMED Group is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and also has offices in UK, Russia, Croatia, Poland, Spain, Dubai, Serbia, Italy and the USA. The collaboration with CBT Development represents one of four co development agreements. The first was a collaboration with CeNeS (now Paion) regarding a novel NDMA receptor antagonist (CNS 5161) for the treatment of neuropathic pain and cancer pain. The second is with Genzyme Corporation on the co-development of tasidotin, a novel dolastatin analogue that has shown efficacy signals and a good safety profile in previous oncology clinical trials. Phase I trials of tasidotin are ongoing. The third is with Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp a US listed oncology company and covers two compounds in clinical development.
For further information please contact:
ERGOMED Group
Dr Miroslav Reljanovic, CEO
+385 (0) 1 4628 503
ergomed@ergomedgroup.com
ERGOMED Group
Neil Clark, CFO
+44 (0) 1223 370 111
neil.clark@ergomedgroup.com
AVLAR
Alan Goodman
+44 (0) 1954 211 515
