Pfizer has granted exclusive development and marketing rights to Russian firm SatRx for its dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor PF-00734200 for type 2 diabetes.

SatRx, which is part of the ChemRar Hi-Tech Centre, a Russian pharmaceutical investment and R&D group, gets worldwide rights (excluding China) to the drug as monotherapy or in combination with other diabetes drugs. Pfizer will receive royalties and milestone payments, though specific financial details have not been disclosed.

The companies' partnership for about a year after the firms signed a memorandum of understanding to explore collaborations focused on compounds and vaccines to treat cardiometabolic, infectious and oncologic diseases. Yulia Baybikova, general manager of SatRx, said the agreement with Pfizer provides her firm with "essential background for the development of fully innovative tools to tune the metabolism of patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity".

She added that the "synergistic actions of DPP-4 inhibitors and proprietary new SatRx molecules active in the incretin metabolic cascade will provide significant therapeutic benefits and promises to increase patient compliance and quality of life".

According to Russian Endocrinology Association data, as of January 1, 2011 more than 3.3 million diabetes cases were registered in Russia and during the last 10 years the number of patients in Russia has doubled.