After announcing staff layoffs and an R&D pivot in March, the first evidence of Orion’s increased focus on pain management has materialized in the form of a licensing deal that will put it up against Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Finland’s Orion will pay Jemincare 15 million euros ($15.9 million) upfront for the rights to develop and commercialize the preclinical, non-opioid pain therapy JMKX000623 outside greater China. The drug is designed to block NaV 1.8, a sodium channel that plays a pivotal role in pain transmission.
While no NaV 1.8 blockers have yet made it to market, Vertex has been making intermittent progress in this space. The company dropped its NaV1.8 inhibitor VX-961 in 2020 after getting a look at phase 1 data, but its sibling VX-548 performed well in a phase 2 this year. Vertex plans to advance the latter drug into pivotal development in the second half of 2022, following discussions with regulators.
Orion will be hoping to catch up, with plans to get JMKX000623 into the clinic later this year. If successful, Nanchang, China-based Jemincare will be on course for a “significant” but undisclosed haul of biobucks, Outi Vaarala, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president of research and development at Orion, said in the May 6 announcement.
“There is a high unmet need for new non-addictive treatment options with improved efficacy and safety profiles,” Vaarala said. “NaV 1.8 channel is a known pain transmission pathway and is thus a promising target for novel pain treatments.”
Orion’s licensing deal follows the company’s announcement in March that it would lay off up to 37 employees as part of a move to slim down its R&D unit and narrow its focus away from rare and neurodegenerative diseases and toward cancer and pain, where it has had some success. In oncology, Orion worked with Bayer to develop Nubeqa, an oral androgen receptor inhibitor that won FDA approval in 2019, and the Finnish company also has the CYP11A1 inhibitor ODM-208 in the clinic.