La Jolla Institute signs agreement with Medimmune on major asthma discovery
A major asthma discovery by a researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology has been licensed by MedImmune, a leading innovation-focused biotechnology company and wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca PLC. MedImmune licensed the discovery to explore its use in the development of a potential biologics drug for treating asthma.
Under the agreement, MedImmune was granted exclusive intellectual property rights to the discovery, which demonstrated the pivotal role of a protein called the OX40 ligand in asthma. The finding was made by the laboratory of La Jolla Institute scientist Michael Croft, Ph.D., and marked a major milestone in asthma research.
More than 30 million Americans (or 11.2 per cent of the population) reported having a history of asthma in 2005, including nine million children, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 20 million Americans said they currently have the disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates asthma-related health care costs in the U.S. at $14 billion annually.
La Jolla Institute leaders hailed the agreement as significant for asthma sufferers. “This agreement with MedImmune is an important first step towards the goal of translating some of Dr. Croft’s groundbreaking work in the laboratory into an innovative therapy for improving the lives of asthma patients,” said Mitchell Kronenberg, Ph.D., president and scientific director of the La Jolla Institute, a non-profit biomedical research institute and international leader in immunology research.
“The licensing of this intellectual property by MedImmune further validates the importance of Dr. Croft’s discovery in the field of asthma research,” Kronenberg said. “We are thrilled that MedImmune has recognized its potential and will be leveraging the intellectual property for its internal product candidates.” He added that MedImmune possesses the capabilities to take the discovery through all stages of clinical development, as demonstrated by its successful track record of bringing biologics to market.
Source: La Jolla Institute