Cypralis and Gilead Sciences, Inc. agree on license terms under which Cypralis will hold exclusive development and commercialisation rights to certain jointly-owned ‘cyprolides’ for acute and chronic

Cypralis and Gilead Sciences, Inc. (“Gilead”) have agreed that Cypralis will have exclusive development and commercialization rights to certain macrocyclic inhibitors of peptide bond isomerases, in all fields except for oncology and virology. This is a further step in the collaboration between the parties which follows a multi-year drug discovery collaboration between Selcia Ltd (Ongar, Essex) and Gilead (Foster City, California) under which Selcia’s chemists and biologists provided integrated drug discovery services to support Gilead’s liver disease research programmes. The research phase ended in 2013 and Selcia’s rights under the agreement have been subsequently transferred to Cypralis.

During the research collaboration, Selcia and Gilead generated four jointly owned patents and two pre-clinical candidates. 

Simon Kerr (CEO, Cypralis) commented: “Cyprolides are a new class of fully synthetic cyclophilin inhibitors that are potent inhibitors of cyclophilin D and protect against opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore. This property leads to protection of cells and tissues associated with several diseases such as neurodegeneration, fibrosis and other mitochondrially-mediated diseases. By focusing upon acute and chronic degenerative diseases, we aim to exploit the properties of this new class of compound in areas outside of oncology and virology.”