US-based Reata gains licence to novel anti-inflammatory compounds
Reata Pharmaceuticals of Dallas, Texas, US, has agreed a licence deal with Dartmouth College and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for the exclusive worldwide rights to a new class of anti-inflammatory compounds known as tricyclic bis-enones (TBEs).
Reata Pharmaceuticals of Dallas, Texas, US, has agreed a licence deal with Dartmouth College and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for the exclusive worldwide rights to a new class of anti-inflammatory compounds known as tricyclic bis-enones (TBEs).
Preclinical development of lead compounds in this class is underway in the laboratories of Reata and its collaborators.
The compounds were developed by Michael Sporn, professor of Pharmacology and Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, in collaboration with Gordon Gribble and Tadashi Honda, both professors of chemistry at Dartmouth.
The compounds have shown potent anti-inflammatory activity in early preclinical studies and have promising potential across multiple therapeutic areas. They are structurally related to Reata's synthetic triterpenoids, which were developed by the same Dartmouth group. Two of the triterpenoids (RTA 401 and RTA 402) are now in clinical development as anti-cancer and cytoprotective agents.