Suven achieves first milestone in CNS drug discovery pact with Eli Lilly

Suven Life Sciences, based in Hyderabad, South India, entered into drug discovery collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company, in 2008, USA to jointly discover and develop candidates for the treatment of CNS disorders.

Suven achieved the first milestone with the identification and selection of a first lead compound. This lead compound could be advanced into lead optimization phase of preclinical development, Sueven said in an official release.

Drug discovery collaboration in central nervous system (CNS) disorder with Eli Lilly and Company yielded a positive outcome with lead declaration leading to a milestone payment to Suven, the company said.

The contract with Eli Lilly provides substantial long-term upside for Suven through potential payments for successful milestones achieved during clinical development and royalties on worldwide sales if new drugs are commercialized.

As per the terms agreed, Eli Lilly will have the full ownership of the candidates developed under this collaboration while Suven receives ongoing research payments and preclinical milestones.

Lilly will undertake the clinical development of the selected candidates and their global commercialization. This is Suven’s second drug discovery pact with Eli Lilly.

In August 2006 Suven signed an agreement with Eli Lilly to collaborate on the pre-clinical research of molecules in the CNS therapeutic area to identify potent, oral compounds that selectively modulate the specified G-Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR).

Suven has six internally discovered therapeutic drug candidates currently in pre-clinical stage of development targeting conditions such as ADHD, dementia, depression, Huntington’s disease. Parkinson’s disease and obesity are in addition to developmental candidates in Alzheimer’s disease and Schizophrenia.

In July Suven presented clinical Phase-I data for SUVN-502, its 5-HT6 antagonist drug candidate at the 2009 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD-2009) in Vienna, Austria.

SUVN-502 is a potent, safe, highly selective, brain penetrant and orally active antagonist at a non-peripheral CNS receptor site 5-HT6, intended for the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders of memory and cognition like Attention deficient hyperactivity, Parkinson, Schizophrenia.

Suven conducted studies for SUVN-502 at Basel, Switzerland under a Clinical Trial Application (CTA) approved by SwissMedic, the regulatory authority of Switzerland for therapeutic products.

The study is “A Double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, both single ascending dose & multiple ascending dose study” in healthy male subjects. The study was conducted on 67 healthy male subjects using escalating single and multiple oral doses with the objective of assessing safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of SUVN-502.

Suven’s study demonstrated that SUVN-502 was well tolerated by the subjects at all dose levels and was found to have a dose proportional pharmacokinetics profile with good exposure levels. The Phase-1 clinical data attracted a lot of scientific and commercial interest from global Pharma companies.

SUVN-502 produces a robust effect in key models of cognition with a favorable safety and pharmacokinetic profile, providing a strong rationale for clinical development in a cognition indication.

“We believe that SUVN-502 has great potential to become a novel treatment for disorders affecting memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia and other dementia,” said Venkat Jasti, CEO of Suven Life Sciences Ltd.