Trophos renews its collaborative agreement with the AFM
Trophos, the Marseille drug discovery company, announced today that it has signed a new two-year collaborative agreement with the Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM) to identify therapeutic compounds for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a genetic neuromuscular disorder whose most severe forms are fatal at infant stages.
Marseilles, 1st July 2003 - Trophos will receive 3.4 Million € over the two-year period 2003-2004 to pursue a research program aimed at selecting small molecules that protect motor neurons - the neurons affected in spinal muscular atrophy - and to develop these compounds to the drug candidate stage. The research strategy uses Trophos expertise and technology to screen chemical libraries on models of sick neurons mimicking the physiopathological context. Hit compounds are further screened to select potential drug candidates.
Spinal muscular atrophy is a genetic motor neuron disease caused by progressive loss of spinal motor neurons, leading to muscle weakness, respiratory complications and premature death. There are currently around 30,000 people suffering from SMA and there are no drugs that slow or prevent disease progression.
Eric Molinié, President of the AFM, said: "We are optimistic about the potential of applying Trophos' innovative technology to SMA. The AFM is committed to working actively for the development of a treatment of this devastating disease. We believe that the Trophos approach of pharmacological screening brings serious new hopes of finding therapeutic treatment in an area where so far there has been very little progress."
Dr. Rebecca Pruss, Chief Scientific Officer, said, "SMA is caused
by the lack of the protein SMN that is necessary for motor neuron survival.
Because of Trophos' unique ability to reproduce in the test tube the pathology
of motor neuron death, it has now become possible to screen for small
molecules that can increase the survival of - or rescue - the precise
class of neurons that is affected in the disease. Together with its academic
founder, Dr. Chris Henderson, Trophos has developed the ability to carry
out these kind of screens in high-throughput mode. This was simply not
possible in the past.
The collaboration with the AFM is essential; it brings the project into
contact with the best scientific and clinical partners, and with the SMA
families themselves".
Antoine Béret, Trophos' President-Directeur General, said: "We
have collaborated with the AFM since beginning the company. AFM was pleased
to find in us a motivated team ready to work on orphan diseases. The renewal
of the collaborative agreement is the mark of a long-term commitment of
AFM; this is essential in a drug development project. The SMA project
is part of a wider program covering the two motor neuron diseases, amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Although there
are differences between the two, they have in common an abnormal loss
of motor neurons. The funding of the AFM is a way to share the risks of
this global program with Trophos' shareholders. We believe the phenotypic
screening approach of Trophos has a broad potential; it opens the way
to many other neurological disorders. We have a similar program for the
Huntington's disease."
Trophos SA is a biopharmaceutical company, focused on the discovery and development of therapeutic compounds for neurodegenerative diseases. The company' s discovery strategy consists in recreating the neuronal degeneration in the test tube and screening collections of chemical compounds for their ability to block these processes. Trophos has developed a portfolio of proprietary products in various stages of development from research to preclinical development
Trophos focuses on the identification of drug candidates and carries out the full process of preclinical development as well as Phase 1 and Phase 2 developments before licensing them to pharmaceutical companies. Trophos' discovery and development programs focus on motor neuron diseases (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis & Spinal Muscular Atrophy), Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease.
The company began its operations in 2000 and has currently 30 employees.
It is located in Marseilles, France.