Sept. 2, 2008 - Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: IDRA), announced that it will receive a milestone payment from Novartis under the two companies' research collaboration and license agreements. Under the terms of the agreement, the payment was triggered by the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical study by Novartis of QAX935. QAX935 is a novel agonist of Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) exclusively licensed by Idera to Novartis...
...About the Collaboration
In June 2005, the Company and Novartis announced they had entered into research collaboration and license agreements for the discovery, optimization, development, and commercialization of TLR9 drug candidates targeting asthma and allergy based on Idera's proprietary Immune Modulatory Oligonucleotide (IMO(TM)) technology platform. The agreements are structured in two phases. During the research collaboration phase, the Company and Novartis have been working together to evaluate novel IMOs from which Novartis may select IMO candidates for further development through human clinical "proof of concept" trials. Based on the results, Novartis may then elect to implement the commercialization agreement, complete the development and commercialize one or more of the IMO candidates... Idera Pharmaceuticals' Press Release -
