Daiichi Sankyo licenses cancer compound from ArQule

Daiichi Sankyo has licensed a developmental cancer compound from ArQule as part of a research alliance between the two companies.

The firm has obtained exclusive rights for the development, manufacturing and marketing of ARQ 092 on a global basis, with efforts to focus on identifying its potential to treat disease by targeting the AKT signalling pathway.

It represents the first compound to emerge from the organisations' November 2008 agreement to jointly conduct research into AKIP technology to generate novel, selective and potent small molecule kinase inhibitors.

Patient enrolment for a phase I clinical trial of the new therapy option is now scheduled to begin in the coming months.

Dr Kazunori Hirokawa, global head of Daiichi Sankyo's research and development unit, said: "Our strategic alliance partnerships, such as our collaborations with ArQule, allow us to combine forces to move more programmes into clinical trials toward our common goal of improving and extending lives."

This comes after the firm announced the establishment of a new vaccines research unit at its Kasai centre in Japan earlier this month.