Marco Polo Pharmaceuticals and Biocortech Sign Licensing Agreement to Develop BC-19 in Treatment Resistant Depression
Marco Polo Pharmaceuticals has entered into a licensing agreement with diagnostics company Biocortech to develop BC-19 in treatment resistant depression. Under the terms of the agreement, Marco Polo takes responsibility for all further clinical development of BC-19 and for eventual commercialisation or outlicensing to a suitable partner.
BC-19 is an eburnamine derivative, previously investigated for the indications of cerebral insufficiency and cognitive deficits. As an antidepressant, BC-19 had shown remarkably beneficial properties when administered to patients suffering from treatment resistant depression. Moreover, BC19 is the first depression therapy to offer the possibility of disease modification by restoring the function of deficient noradrenergic pathways which terminate in the prefrontal cortex.
“It is a great accomplishment for our company to announce a licensing agreement of this kind,” said Professor Mondher Toumi, CEO of Marco Polo Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Aleksandar Bakhutshuili, CMO added that, “there is a major unmet need in resistant and melancholic depression, and we believe that this compound will help those who suffer from this disease. Our team looks forward to further developing BC-19 in these indications.”
"This agreement, which is aligned with our strategic shift toward biomarkers, is a great opportunity to move BC-19 development forward and to bring a novel class of promising compounds to patients." said Dr. Dinah Weissmann, CEO of Biocortech. Professor Jean François Pujol, CSO of Biocortech added that , “It is fortunate that all the work done to decipher the new mechanism of action of BC-19, and my vision to develop BC-19 for treatment resistant depression since the late 1980s, led to this open perspective of addressing unmet needs of suffering patients.”
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