NicOx S.A. has announced it has signed an extension of its March 2006 collaboration agreement, which grants Pfizer Inc the exclusive right to apply its proprietary nitric oxide-donating technology to drug discovery research in the field of ophthalmology.
This one-year extension of the research phase of the agreement will result in NicOx receiving 3 million euro in research funding in March 2008 and prolongs Pfizer's option to license resulting compounds until May 2009.
The joint NicOx-Pfizer research team has been focusing its work on several separate projects, which have involved identifying and testing different classes of nitric oxide-donating compounds that could become treatments for major ocular diseases. In the most advanced project, encouraging results have been observed for various compounds in in vitro and in vivo preclinical models of a prevalent eye disease.
Ennio Ongini, Vice President of Research at NicOx, declared: "We believe Pfizer's decision to renew this agreement demonstrates its confidence in the joint research team and the potential of NicOx' technology to yield new drug candidates for eye disorders. Considerable progress has been made in the research programs and we are expecting that the collaboration will generate a future candidate for development in a major ocular condition."