BioWorld International Correspondent

Dutch drug discovery firm Jari Pharmaceuticals BV entered an alliance with Genmab A/S focused on the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies that act on inflammation-related targets supplied by Jari.

The deal, Jari's first major drug discovery collaboration, is based on a shared-cost model. Each company will contribute equally to the cost of the program and will receive an equal share of revenues.

The partnership is the first significant alliance Utrecht-based Jari has entered since its formation in early 2000. The company was founded by U.S. entrepreneur Richard Lyman, a former chairman of Quadrant Healthcare, and CEO Jaap Kampinga, previously R&D director at the same firm, which is now a subsidiary of Dublin, Ireland-based Elan Corp. plc.

Jari's drug discovery efforts rest on the hypothesis that bacteria isolated from patients may have evolved mechanisms for promoting colonization and survival in their hosts, such as through the production of molecules that modulate the immune system. Those could have potential therapeutic benefits in inflammatory conditions. "It is logical that drug leads are not growing in plants or in chemical databases," Jari Program Director Stef Stienstra told BioWorld International.

Its lead molecule, JPD-003, entered Phase I trials last month for treatment of reperfusion damage following ischemia. Parallel trials for several other inflammatory conditions will follow, Stienstra said. JPD-003, a 14 Kd polypeptide derived from Staphylococcus aureus, acts by inhibiting activation of the inflammatory response by interfering with neutrophil chemotaxis. It impairs the function of the C5a receptor, he said, although it does not actually bind at the receptor site.

The compound was discovered by a research group at the University of Utrecht. In cooperation with the same team, Jari developed a discovery platform, called Lantis, which is designed to yield a library of modulators of the innate immune system. It comprises some 20,000 clinical bacterial isolates, a large collection of functional screening assays and a medium-throughput screening system based on a FlexStation fluorometer, which supports array-based microtiter screening for compounds that act on immune cells, such as neutrophils or macrophages.

The alliance with Copenhagen, Denmark-based Genmab will extend its drug discovery reach into antibody therapeutics, as the latter firm has access to Princeton, N.J.-based Medarex Inc.'s UltiMab platform for generating fully human monoclonal antibodies. The agreement does not specify a maximum number of targets, Stienstra said. "We are still free to develop for those targets our own molecules," he added.

Jari raised €6.4 million (US$6.4 million) in first-round funding from NIB Capital Private Equity NV, ABN Amro Participaties BV and NPM Capital NV, all of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in October 2000. The same investors have agreed to provide an undisclosed level of follow-on financing, Stienstra said, but the company does not plan to undergo a formal second round until it has attained additional milestones that will boost its valuation.