Ludwigshafen, Germany, January 06, 2017 - Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG (Phenex) yesterday announced that the company has received a 100 M USD milestone payment from Gilead Sciences, Inc. of Foster City, CA, U.S.A., for its program with GS-9674 targeting nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). GS-9674 is a novel, synthetic and nonsteroidal FXR agonist which was originally developed by Phenex and then sold to Gilead. In December 2014, Gilead acquired the Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR) program from Phenex, in a deal valued at 470 million USD. GS 9674 is the clinical drug candidate that Gilead has elected to test in patients with liver diseases such as NASH, primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). GS-9674 is now being evaluated for its safety and efficacy in Phase 2 studies in all three indications (see clinicaltrials.gov study identifiers NCT02854605, NCT02943447, NCT02943460).
Dr. Claus Kremoser, CEO of Phenex, comments: “When we signed this FXR deal with Gilead at the end of 2014 we could only hope that one day a molecule from our labs would be elected by Gilead as a clinical development candidate. At that time it was an ambitious aspiration which has now become reality. We are very pleased that Gilead has fully embraced our FXR agonist program and wish them success for the outcome of these studies. GS-9674 is now in the best hands to be further developed in these indications with high unmet medical needs.”
Thomas Hoffmann, CFO of Phenex, adds: “This milestone payment is in addition to a further undisclosed milestone from the same program earlier this year for GS-9674 entering Phase 1 studies. For the last three years, Phenex shows high profitability. With our outstandingly strong cash position now, we can strategically invest in novel drug discovery programs. It allows us to build up a drug discovery platform in liver and gastrointestinal diseases as well as in oncology where we can afford to evaluate radical novel innovative and promising approaches.”
Claus Kremoser continues: “Our ambition is it to use these proceeds to build up a pipeline of potentially game changing new drugs in the liver/GI field, as well as in cancer. Our next big goal is to take a drug all the way from research to approval and marketing. We are now in an excellent position to reach this goal with some certainty.”
”We are very pleased with our investment in Phenex”, said Karlheinz Schmelig, Managing Partner of Creathor Venture. “The milestone payment proves Phenex‘ approach has a huge potential and reflects the great achievements of its management.“
About Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG:
Phenex is a privately held drug discovery and development company headquartered in Ludwigshafen with a research site in Heidelberg. The biopharmaceutical company can now build on fourteen years of expertise in exploring and defining innovative, potent and selective new drug candidates from small molecules. Phenex´s R&D activities are centered around diseases of liver / gastrointestinal tract, inflammation / autoimmune as well as cancer.
It is the company´s goal to partner and outlicense drug programs in areas with major market potential to global players from the biopharmaceutical industry while pursuing its own drug development in niche areas with particular high medical needs. Visit Phenex’s homepage at: http://www.phenex-pharma.com/
About Creathor Venture Management GmbH:
As a leading pan-European Venture Capital firm, Creathor Venture invests in technology-oriented companies and entrepreneurs. Creathor Venture focuses on mobile, digital media, cloud technology, internet of things, sharing economy, fintech. In the life science sector we invest in selected areas such as precision medicine, enabling platforms, medtech and digital health. Regional focus is on Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and the Nordics. The management team of Creathor Venture consists of the CEO Dr. Gert Köhler, Karlheinz Schmelig, Cédric Köhler and Dr. Aristotelis Nastos. The team has been investing successfully in the early-stage venture capital business for 30 years. During that time, the team has built more than 200 technology companies successfully, conducted more than 20 international IPOs and has achieved exceptional returns for fund investors and the financed entrepreneurs in the past, all in the position as lead investor. The current portfolio of more than 30 companies is actively supported in development, growth and internationalization by a team of 19 staff. Creathor Venture manages funds of more than EUR 220 million and holds offices in Bad Homburg (Frankfurt), Tutzing (Munich), Cologne, Zurich and Stockholm.
The investors of the current fund include the European Union, through which the fund receives funding from the “Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme” (CIP), and the “ERP EIF fund of funds” and the LfA – Gesellschaft für Vermögensverwaltung GmbH, both facilities of the European Investment Fund (“EIF”), fund of funds, family offices and entrepreneurs.
As the largest investor in Creathor the management underlines its entrepreneurial orientation.
Visit our homepage at: http://www.creathor.com/
