Molecular Partners and Orano further expand cooperation

(CONNECT) The biotech company Molecular Partners has extended its existing cooperation with Orano Med, according to a press release. The Schlieren-based biotech company will now equip ten of its radio-DARPin therapeutics - a new class of customized protein drugs - with 212Pb, a lead-containing alpha emitter from the Texan company Orano Med. The two companies had already revised their previous agreement in October 2024. They had announced that they would be working together on four such DARPin research programs.

According to the latest announcement, the most advanced radio-DARPin, MP0712, is to be transferred to the clinical stage this year. This was announced by Molecular Partners at the 43rd J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. It will take place until January 16, 2025. Molecular Partners owns the marketing rights for this active ingredient. Orano Med will ensure the production of the Pb-based radio-DARPins for clinical studies and commercialization. Further details on this candidate will be announced in April 2025 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research in Chicago.

"We are excited to start 2025 with upcoming positive inflection points for the value of our company, both in radio DARPins as well as switch DARPin and T-cell engagers," Molecular Partners CEO Patrick Amstutz is quoted as saying. "This will allow us to build on our successes in 2024." According to him, the expanded cooperation will also extend to mesothelin. In addition, Amstutz continued, the work with the candidate for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia is also showing encouraging initial results.

Molecular Partners, based in the Bio-Technopark Schlieren-Zurich, was founded in 2004 by researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH). ce/mm