Lundbeck has made “a strategic investment” in Ossianix, which will help the privately-held US firm to generate biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of nervous system disorders.
No specific details of the financing, made in the form of a convertible promissory note, were given by Ossianix, which has an antibody platform modeled on the shark vNAR structure. The Philadelphia-based group, formed in 2001 and currently funded by BioAdvance and the ALS Association, added that the investment “will potentially give access to the development of novel differentiated central nervous system products”.
Lundbeck will retain the right to negotiate for certain products and technologies arising from the research at Ossianix. Joining the board at the latter will be Peter Hongaard Andersen, head of research at the Danish drugmaker and he said the firm wishes to develop its biologics portfolio further.
Given that wish, he added that Ossianix’s technology “has the potential to tailor the power of the single domain antibodies to a variety of unique drug targets”.
