GSK enhances extent of strategic alliance

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has signed an agreement for the augmentation of an existing five-year strategic partnership with NeuroSearch for drug discovery in the central nervous system (CNS) and ion channel.

The new scope of the agreement includes a change in the allocation of work, risk and reward between GSK and NeuroSearch, an expansion of the exploitation of NeuroSearch’s ion channel platform to include non-CNS indications and a new financial structure by which NeuroSearch can sell shares to GSK up to the value of 30 million euro (20.37 million pounds).

Maxine Gowne, senior vice president of external drug discovery at GSK, said: “We are very pleased with the alliance with NeuroSearch and the expansion of our collaboration. We want to fully explore the potential of NeuroSearch’s unique ion channel platform across multiple therapeutic areas.”

She added that it was the aim of GSK that its partners in collaboration themselves are of the size and ability that permits them to be responsible for a substantial portion of the process of drug discovery and that NeuroSerarch had enhanced its resources to reach this point in the past few years.

The primary focus of NeuroSearch is discovery and development of drugs using modulation of membrane-bound transporters, especially ion channels, for the treatment of central nervous system diseases.