UCB has acquired the key pharmaceutical assets of the UK’s Lectus Therapeutics, boosting its efforts in the central nervous system field.
Under the terms of the agreement, financial details of which were not disclosed, the Belgian drugmaker is getting hold of Lectus’ drug discovery and development programmes targeting ion channels “for the treatment of a specific set of CNS indications”. It also gets exclusive worldwide rights to commercialise products discovered from the use of Lectus’ Leptics technology for a number of further ion channel targets.
Roland Kozlowski, Lectus chief executive, said that the competitive edge Leptics brings, plus UCB’s expertise “will lead to success in this challenging area of R&D”. He added that the deal, “executed with one of the leading global biopharmaceutical companies, highlights the potential of Lectus’ approach to ion channel drug discovery”.
