AstraZeneca and Orca Pharmaceuticals to develop autoimmune disease therapies

AstraZeneca and Orca Pharmaceuticals have announced a new partnership to develop oral treatments for a range of autoimmune diseases.

The three-year collaboration will focus on the development of inhibitors of retinoic acid-related orphan nuclear receptor gamma, a receptor that plays a key role in the immune system and has been implicated in conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will integrate inhibitor compounds developed by Orca Pharmaceuticals into its in-house programme, with scientists from both firms working together to progress the programme. AstraZeneca also has an option to acquire the compounds at the end of the collaboration.

Respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases are a key therapeutic focus area for AstraZeneca, and this new class of therapies is expected to offer significant benefits compared to current options.

Dr Maarten Kraan, head of the respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases innovative medicines unit at AstraZeneca, said: "We are delighted to be partnering with Orca Pharmaceuticals in this hot area of immunology science to help us create potentially best-in-class candidate drugs for patients who currently do not have any oral medicines available to treat their chronic conditions."

This comes after AstraZeneca's biologics research and development arm MedImmune has agreed a licensing deal with Omnis Pharmaceuticals last month, focused on the study of oncolytic viruses in immuno-oncology.