Venture-capital backed Mission Therapeutics Ltd is to divest a clinical asset for the treatment of acute kidney injury to Australia-based Dimerix Ltd providing it with $292 million in non-dilutive capital. This will enable it to pursue its priority treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other possible central nervous system disorders. Announced on 17 July, the deal will also deliver up to double-digit tiered royalties to Mission should the kidney product, MTX652, reach the market. It is currently poised to enter Phase 2. The small molecule drug, MTX325, for Parkinson’s is in Phase 1.
Mission was spun-out of the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2011 with the goal of developing drugs targeting ubiquitin pathways that control the response of cells to DNA damage. This later became a strategy for inhibiting deubiquitylating enzymes that prevent mitophagy which is a process for recycling defective mitochondria. The company’s principal target is a deubiquitylating enzyme called USP30. This is intended to help restore normal mitophagy levels by retarding the action of USP30.
“This transaction provides an expedited path to patients for MTX652. It also strengthens Mission’s financial position, which will enable us to accelerate development of our lead CNS-focused asset MTX325,” said Anker Lundemose, Mission’s executive director, in a prepared statement.
Mission has chosen Parkinson’s as a focus where low levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine lead to uncontrollable movements which worsen over time MTX325 has been designed to protect the dopamine-producing neurons by supporting the process of mitophagy.
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