Shares in biotech firm C4X Discovery fizz on €414m Sanofi deal
Shares in C4X discovery jumped today after the biotech company unveiled a €414m (£360m) licensing deal with Sanofi to develop an oral therapy to treat inflammatory diseases.
Under the terms of the deal, the London-listed giant will receive an upfront payment of €7m and could receive up to a further €407m in potential development and commercialisation payments.
C4X’s Aim-listed shares rose more than 10 per cent following the announcement.
The agreement relates to C4X’s pre-clinical IL-17 inhibitor programme, which is designed to tackle inflammatory diseases including psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.
Current treatments targeted these diseases are antibodies administered via an injection, but scientists are trying to develop oral therapies to increase the number of patients able to receive treatment.
C4X boss Clive Dix hailed the agreement as a “major milestone” for the company, adding that the treatment could tap into a multi-billion dollar market.
“We are proud to be working with Sanofi to create much needed oral therapies in the underserved inflammatory disease space,” he said.
“While antibody therapies have demonstrated the potential of IL-17 inhibition in the generation of highly effective treatments, the injectable route means many patients currently do not have access to the medicines that can change their lives.
“We believe that our small molecule programme has the potential to create high value, efficacious and convenient oral IL-17 therapeutics for this large market.”
Dix, a former chairman of the Bioindustry Association, was appointed interim chair of the UK vaccines taskforce following the departure of Kate Bingham.