Forest Laboratories and Glenmark agree inflammatory disease alliance

Forest Laboratories has signed a new worldwide collaboration agreement with Glenmark Pharmaceuticals focusing on the development of new mPGES-1 inhibitors to treat chronic inflammatory conditions.

Glenmark has identified several clinical candidates for use in the treatment of conditions such as chronic pain and is currently conducting preclinical studies and other development activities required to support the initiation of first-in-human dosing.

Forest will contribute financial support to help Glenmark progress its research to the next phase of work, receiving in return an exclusive option to obtain license rights to the programme on completion of phase I testing.

Marco Taglietti, senior vice-president for research and development at Forest and president of the Forest Research Institute, said the agreement "provides us access to a novel programme focused on a high interest target that has the potential to benefit patients and physicians".

Last month, Forest entered into an agreement with Adamas Pharmaceuticals for the development of a fixed-dosed combination of Namenda XR and donepezil HCl as a once-daily therapy for Alzheimer's disease in the US.