Memory Pharmaceuticals achieves milestone for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders

Jul 17 2006

Memory Pharmaceuticals is to receive approximately $2.3M in funding from Roche in 2007.

Memory Pharmaceuticals has announced that it has achieved a set of defined preclinical milestones in its collaboration with Roche for the discovery and development of nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonists for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders, triggering a commitment from Roche to provide approximately $2.3 million in research funding during 2007.

The milestone was related to progress in the preclinical development of MEM 63908, the second named development candidate in the Company's nicotinic alpha-7 agonist program.

"Roche's commitment to the nicotinic alpha-7 agonist collaboration is reflected in the progress we have made with the preclinical development of MEM 63908," said David A. Lowe, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Memory Pharmaceuticals. "Roche has confirmed that MEM 63908 represents a promising development candidate, and we look forward to working with our partner to move this compound into the clinic and identifying and optimizing other lead candidates from the nicotinic alpha-7 agonist program."

MEM 63908 is a partial agonist of the nicotinic alpha-7 receptor and belongs to a family of novel nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonists that are being developed under the companies' collaboration. A number of lines of evidence suggest that partial agonists at the nicotinic alpha-7 receptor could have a variety of uses in addressing important diseases of the central nervous system, including Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.

Under the terms of the companies' 2006 nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonist collaboration agreement, Memory Pharmaceuticals granted Roche an exclusive worldwide license to its intellectual property on nicotinic alpha-7 receptor agonist compounds. In addition to the approximately $2.3 million in research funding for 2007, Memory Pharmaceuticals will be eligible to receive milestone payments upon the achievement of development, regulatory and sales events for drug candidates that progress under the collaboration. MEM 3454 remains under the terms of the original 2003 option agreement with Roche.