Allergan and Molecular Partners announce new collaboration

Allergan has announced a major new alliance with long-time collaborator Molecular Partners that will aim to create therapies for serious ophthalmic diseases.

Two separate agreements to discover, develop and commercialise proprietary therapeutic DARPin products have been agreed by the companies, with Allergan to pay Molecular Partners a combined upfront fee of $62.5 million (39.66 million pounds).

The first partnership will aim to create a potent dual anti-VEGF-A/PDGF-B DARPin for use against exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD), while the other is intended to help discover DARPins against selected targets that are implicated in causing serious diseases of the eye.

If the full value of both agreements is realised, the alliances could be worth up to a combined total of $1.4 billion.

Dr Scott Whitcup, executive vice-president of research and development and chief scientific officer of Allergan, said: "We look forward to further developing a novel therapy that blocks both VEGF and PDGF, as a potential way to improve vision in patients with wet AMD."

During the second quarter of 2012, Allergan generated sales of $1.47 billion, up by 4.6 percent on a year-on-year basis.