Heptares Grants Shire an Exclusive Worldwide Licence to Develop and Commercialise Novel Drug Candidate for CNS Disorders

WELWYN GARDEN CITY, England and BOSTON, Massachusetts, March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Heptares Therapeutics, the leading GPCR drug discovery company, announces that an operating company of Shire PLC (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, has exercised its exclusive option to license a novel adenosine A_2A antagonist discovered by Heptares that is currently in preclinical development. Adenosine A_2A is a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) involved in the regulation of dopaminergic pathways in the brain. Inhibition of the A_2A receptor is a validated mechanism in the treatment of CNS disorders.

Under the terms of the agreement Heptares grants Shire an exclusive licence to worldwide development and commercial rights to A_2Aantagonists discovered by Heptares. Heptares receives upfront option grant and exercise payments and is also eligible to receive future development and commercial milestone payments up to US$190 million plus royalties on product sales. Further terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.

Jeff Jonas, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, Specialty Pharmaceuticals and Regenerative Medicine, Shire, said:  "Shire is continuously in search of innovations that have the potential to help us develop well differentiated medicines that will bring value to patients. This agreement with Heptares is a reflection of our growth strategy of investing and focusing on highly targeted drug discovery platforms. We are impressed with the novelty and quality of the A_2A antagonist leads generated by Heptares, resulting from what we believe to be the first time a structure-based drug discovery approach has been applied from the beginning to a GPCR drug target.  We look forward to a fruitful partnership with Heptares and to advancing the programme for the benefit of patients suffering from CNS disorders."

"The exercise of this option and initiation of the worldwide licensing agreement with Shire, one of the world's leading CNS specialty pharmaceutical companies, is an outstanding achievement for Heptares," said Malcolm Weir, CEO of Heptares. "The A_2A programme is the most advanced example of the Heptares drug discovery platform, and highlights our ability to deliver fundamentally novel chemotypes as a basis for first-in-class and best-in-class medicines addressing a broad range of diseases."

The Heptares A_2A programme reflects a new approach to this GPCR target. Recently published papers (refs 1-3) describe how Heptares technology was used to stabilise the A_2A receptor, enabling the application for the first time of structure-based drug discovery (SBDD) techniques including Biophysical Mapping™, fragment screening and x-ray crystallography to the receptor. The advanced knowledge of the target generated by this approach enabled Heptares scientists to discover entirely new types of chemical structures for inhibiting the A_2A receptor, potentially possessing best-in-class drug-like characteristics, a radical advance after decades of largely unsuccessful medicinal chemistry.

About Heptares Therapeutics

Heptares discovers and develops new medicines targeting GPCRs (G-protein-coupled receptors), a super-family of drug targets linked to a wide range of human diseases.  We have established R&D collaborations with Shire, Takeda, AstraZeneca, MedImmune and Novartis Option Fund, and have raised $40M in venture financing from MVM Life Science Partners, Clarus Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Takeda Ventures.  Heptares is an industry pioneer in GPCR structure-based drug design and has built a unique capability for discovering novel molecules that modulate historically undruggable or challenging GPCRs. Our integrated discovery platform includes proprietary technologies for engineering stabilised GPCRs in their natural pharmacological conformations, identifying previously unknown chemistries for GPCR protein-drug interactions, and deploying advanced fragment-based approaches to GPCR target space for the first time. Using this approach, we are generating a broad pipeline of drug candidates for serious CNS and metabolic disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, autism, anxiety & depression, chronic insomnia, addiction and diabetes.  For more information, please visit http://www.heptares.com.

References

1. Langmead, C. et al. (2012) J. Med. Chem. DOI: 10.1021/jm201455y. Published online: January 17, 2012
2. Congreve, M. et al. (2012) J. Med. Chem. DOI: 10.1021/jm201376w. Published online: January 5, 2012
3. Zhukov, A. et al. (2012) J. Med. Chem., 2011, 54 (13), pp 4312-4323

Contact Information

Citigate DeweRogerson (for Heptares)
Mark Swallow, Chris Gardner
+1 857-222-4586
dan.grau@heptares.com

+44 (0)20-7282-2948
mark.swallow@citigatedr.co.uk

Heptares Therapeutics Ltd

Malcolm Weir, Chief Executive Officer (UK)
+44 (0)1707-358-629
malcolm.weir@heptares.com

Dan Grau, President (USA)
+1-857-222-4586
dan.grau@heptares.com