Memory, Roche expand deal to develop nicotine alpha-7 agonists

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Feb. 28 - Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp. announced Tuesday that it has amended its strategic alliance agreement with Roche to expand the resources dedicated to the discovery and development of nicotinic alpha-7 agonists.

Under the expanded agreement, Memory said it has granted to Roche an exclusive worldwide license to its intellectual property on nicotinic alpha-7 receptor compounds, according to a company news release.

Excluded from this license is MEM 3454, which will remain under the terms of the original option agreement, officials said.

Under the new agreement, Memory and Roche will actively collaborate on the discovery and clinical development of nicotinic alpha-7 agonists.

Memory said it will conduct phase 1 clinical trials for compounds that emerge from the collaboration and Roche will assume responsibility for later-stage development and commercialization.

Memory said it has the potential to receive about $2.3 million in research funding during 2007 upon the achievement of defined preclinical milestones and will receive milestone payments upon the achievement of development, regulatory and sales events for drug candidates that progress under the collaboration.

Under the new agreement, the clinical milestone payments and royalties on future sales have been adjusted to reflect the respective contributions of the two parties.

In contrast to the other compounds developed under the new collaboration, MEM 3454 will continue to be developed by Memory through phase 2a clinical trials, at which point Roche can exercise an option to license this drug candidate for further development and commercialization, officials said.

"Roche's commitment and contribution of resources to this program reflects both companies' belief in the potential of nicotinic alpha-7 agonists as innovative neurotherapeutics," Jim Sulat, president and chief executive officer, said in the release.

"This more collaborative partnership brings significant additional expertise, capabilities and funding to the nicotinic alpha-7 agonist program, while recognizing Memory Pharmaceuticals' progress in the development of MEM 3454 by retaining our leadership for this drug candidate through the critical proof-of-concept stage," Sulat added.

In addition, Memory said its work under the discovery portion of the PDE4 inhibitor collaboration between Memory and Roche has concluded.

The discovery portion of the PDE4 inhibitor collaboration between Memory and Roche has generated a number of compounds, currently in preclinical development.

Memory and Roche also have agreed to direct the remaining funding under the PDE4 inhibitor collaboration between the two companies toward this amended nicotinic alpha-7 collaboration, officials said.

Roche also has expanded Memory's co-promotion rights to MEM 1414 and MEM 1917 to include Europe, officials said.

Roche maintains its exclusive, worldwide license to develop and commercialize candidates from the PDE4 inhibitor program, and Memory retains its rights to develop the two lead compounds in the PDE4 inhibitor program - MEM 1414 and MEM 1917.

Roche is a Basel, Switzerland, research-based pharmaceutical and diagnostics health care company.

Memory is a Montvale, N.J., biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative drugs for the treatment of debilitating central nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, vascular dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease and memory impairments associated with aging.

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