Organon to find new uses for old drugs with Gene Logic

Organon has announced a new partnership with Gene Logic which will re-examine uses for several drugs where Organon has ceased clinical development. The companies say that they are equal partners in the agreement, which is based on milestone payments from Gene Logic for each Organon drug that makes it into clinical development.

Gene Logic says that their drug repositioning programme researches alternative directions for the development of existing drugs with good safety records stuck in phase II or III of clinical trials, because they have been abandoned or made less of a priority. The companies describe their “novel” approach to pipeline developments as being very broad, researching several disease indicators.

Organon’s vice-president of global research and development, David Nicholson, commented: “We believe Gene Logic?s program has the potential to find new value in our previously deprioritised drug candidates. Organon continues to seek new technologies to increase our drug research output. This technology is an opportunity to address that.?

Louis Tartaglia, general manager and senior vice-president of drug repositioning of Gene Logic, said the deal “would benefit both companies” and added that it was the latest in a long line of cooperative agreements between the companies.

Organon is the human pharmaceuticals of Akzo Nobel, which also manufactures animal healthcare products and can trace its company heritage back to almost 230 years ago. In comparison, Gene Logic is a new pharmaceuticals company, having first started in 1994.

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