Silence Therapeutics and Quark Pharmaceuticals Expand Strategic Licensing Agreement
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Silence Therapeutics plc and Quark Pharmaceuticals, Inc. have announced an expansion of their current strategic technology licensing agreement.
In April 2005 the Companies signed an Option and Licence Agreement, which provided Quark with access to Silence Therapeutics' siRNA technology, AtuRNAi.
The first outcome of Companies' relationship was the development of the AtuRNAi technology-based compound RTP801i, which was licensed to Pfizer Inc in 2006 by Quark and is currently in a phase 1 clinical trial in patients with wet age-related macular degeneration. Quark's product portfolio includes one additional siRNA molecule with a structure covered by patents licensed from Silence Therapeutics.
The expanded agreement provides Quark with options to non-exclusive licenses to develop additional molecules against 3 specific targets using Silence Therapeutics' AtuRNAi technology.
The terms of the amendment signed will entitle Silence Therapeutics to milestone payments and a royalty on product sales after exercise of the options by Quark. Further financial details were not disclosed.
Danny Zurr, Chief Executive Officer of Quark Pharmaceuticals: "We are pleased to extend our relationship with Silence Therapeutics. We believe extending this relationship provides Quark with opportunities to further develop its pipeline of clinical product candidates targeted at indications with significant unmet medical needs."
