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Agreements

Date: 2017-04-04

Type of information: Collaboration agreement

Compound: novel therapeutics for genetically defined subtypes of childhood epilepsy that present with substantial morbidity

Company: UCB (Belgium) Q-State Biosciences (USA - MA)

Therapeutic area: Neurological diseases - CNS diseases

Type agreement: collaboration - R&D - research

Action mechanism:

Disease: epilepsy

Details: • On April 4, 2017, Q-State Biosciences and UCB announced that they have entered into a multi-year therapeutics discovery collaboration. The joint program will employ a precision-medicine approach to the development of novel therapeutics for epilepsy, and particularly genetically defined subtypes of childhood epilepsy that present with substantial morbidity, taking advantage of Q-State’s proprietary optogenetics platform. The collaboration calls for Q-State to build disease models using stem cell-derived neurons from epilepsy patients that can be employed with Q-State’s proprietary Optopatch technology. Optopatch permits the fine interrogation of neuronal networks by optical stimulation and recording and identifies the deficits in neuronal activity caused by genetic mutations. By coupling this platform with neuronal cell lines derived from epilepsy patients, the collaboration aims to characterize neuronal and network dysfunction with unparalleled precision. It also seeks to identify new therapies addressing the specific deficit unique to each epilepsy. This alliance involves the application of a combined UCB/Q-State small molecule chemical library and collaborative medicinal chemistry effort. The goal is to identify and bring to clinical development therapeutics that can efficiently treat seizures in patients with genetic mutations.

Financial terms: Financial terms are not being disclosed, nor are the genetic targets that are the subject of the research. The program includes research support, as well as prospective preclinical and clinical milestones and royalties.

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