Dendright and Janssen Biotech to collaborate on rheumatoid arthritis treatment

Research commercialisation company UniQuest has announced that one of its start-up companies, autoimmune therapy business Dendright, has signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company Janssen Biotech.

The deal is an R&D collaboration and option to license agreement to develop and commercialise Dendright’s tolerising immunotherapy for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Dendright will receive funding to support the preclinical development of the RA immunotherapy through to phase I clinical trials and the development of companion biomarkers; in return, Janssen will receive an option to the exclusive worldwide right to develop and commercialise Dendright’s RA vaccine.

In addition to an option payment, Dendright is eligible to receive certain potential development and sales milestones as well as tiered royalties on sales. Dendright will be responsible for completing the phase I clinical trial in Australia while Janssen will be responsible for all other development, clinical and regulatory filing activities. Dendright will remain wholly owned by UniQuest, itself a business of the University of Queensland (UQ).

RA is caused by immune system dysfunction and affects millions of people worldwide, destroying joints and causing cardiovascular complications that can reduce life spans by 10 years. Dendright’s approach is different to other drugs as it targets the underlying cause of the disease, rather than merely treating the inflammatory symptoms once the disease has developed. Its targeted therapy allows suitable patients to be selected based on specific biomarkers prior to treatment, thereby improving response rates.

Dendright uses its proprietary Curcusome platform technology with disease-specific antigens to develop tolerising autoimmune therapies. The therapy stimulates the patient’s own immune system to ‘re-educate’ the cells that cause autoimmune disease. The technology induces a state of tolerance or reduced activity to the offending self-antigens, resulting in an effective treatment for the long-term management of the specific autoimmune disease.

In January 2012, Janssen provided a seed grant for Dendright’s founder and director, Professor Ranjeny Thomas, and her team to undertake preclinical development of the platform technology in RA. The new collaboration will build on the outcomes of that work.

“We are very pleased to be continuing our strategic collaboration with Janssen, focusing on the application of our platform technology towards rheumatoid arthritis,” said Professor Thomas. “Our goal is to provide RA patients with a new, safe therapy for the management of their disease, with the possibility of disease prevention in the future.”

Professor Thomas said the development and potential commercialisation of the immunotherapy treatment could eventually benefit the world’s millions of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. It is further hoped that the treatment could lead to innovative treatments for other diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.