Sapphire Therapeutics licenses Ghrelin antagonist programme from Novo Nordisk

New Jersey-based Sapphire Therapeutics, a private biopharmaceutical company that develops medicines acting on the ghrelin receptor for metabolic and oncologic diseases, has licensed a discovery-stage ghrelin antagonist programme from Novo Nordisk. Ghrelin receptor antagonists are a new therapeutic target for obesity treatments.

"These potent potential drug "hits" were identified using Novo's proprietary computer model of the ghrelin receptor and already have shown good in vivo proof-of-concept data. No financial terms of the licensing arrangement were disclosed.

"Obesity is a huge unmet medical need and target market; ghrelin, as the only known systemically acting appetite-stimulating hormone, offers a new and very specific target for antagonist drug intervention," said William Polvino, Sapphire's president and ceo. "Licensing this promising discovery-stage ghrelin antagonist program from Novo Nordisk complements Sapphire's clinical-stage agonist program and increases the breadth of our ghrelin portfolio.

Sapphire's pipeline consists of first-in-class compounds acting within the ghrelin pathway. The furthest advanced is anamorelin, a small-molecule ghrelin agonist, currently in Phase II development (with FDA fast-track designation) in cancer patients with anorexia/cachexia syndrome (a common, life-threatening complication of malignant disease).

The company is developing a second clinical-stage ghrelin agonist, ipamorelin, and expects to initiate Phase II studies in post-operative ileus (the temporary post-surgical disruption of gastrointestinal motility) in 2008. The company has a third ghrelin mimetic in preclinical development.