Nine months after Johnson & Johnson stepped back from an Addex Therapeutics-partnered epilepsy drug in the wake of a phase 2 fail, the Big Pharma has now fully severed its relationship with the Swiss biotech.
At the center of the partnership was a positive allosteric modulator (PAM) of metabotropic glutamate receptor-2, dubbed ADX71149, which emerged from a 2004 collaboration between Addex and J&J’s Janssen unit. Janssen oversaw a midstage trial of 110 evaluable patients whose focal onset seizures had not been adequately controlled by the approved epilepsy meds levetiracetam or brivaracetam.
That study failed to demonstrate a delay in the time it took for patients to reach their baseline seizure count, missing the trial’s primary endpoint a year ago. While this result ultimately led J&J to discontinue work on the epilepsy drug, the pharma told Fierce Biotech back in July 2024 that the decision “does not affect our partnership and collaboration with Addex.”
Thursday morning, Addex announced that the partnership with J&J has, however, now been dismantled. The Geneva-based biotech, which has regained sole ownership of ADX71149’s development and commercialization, insisted the drug is a “high-quality asset.”
“We are excited to regain control of its development from our partner with its high quality data package and significant material,” Addex CEO Tim Dyer said in the April 17 release. “We are evaluating a number of high-value therapeutic indications for the future development of the program as well as pursuing discussions with a number of potential partners for the program.”
Addex still has another established partner on its books in the form of Indivior. The pharma penned a $330 million biobucks deal last summer for a GABAB PAM candidate for development in substance use disorders.
When it comes to Addex’s in-house pipeline, top of the priority list is a mGlu5 negative allosteric modulator called dipraglurant, which is under evaluation for future development in brain injury recovery including post-stroke and traumatic brain injury recovery.