Innate Pharma Says Discovery May Lead to New Drugs to Combat Infections
Innate Pharma SA (IPH), a French drug developer, said a discovery published in the journal Science today may lead to new experimental drugs to fight infections.
A team of researchers led by Innate Pharma Co-Founder Eric Vivier discovered that mice not expressing a receptor known to activate the immune system’s so-called natural killer cells, were more resistant to some viral infections, Marseille-based Innate Pharma said in an e-mailed statement today.
The discovery points to a “novel mechanism of regulation of the immune system,” Innate Pharma Chief Executive Officer Herve Brailly said during a telephone interview yesterday. Innate Pharma will explore NKp46 as a potential target for experimental drug candidates in the years to come, he said.
Innate Pharma and Inserm, France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research, have filed patent applications and co-own the intellectual property rights relating to the discovery, Brailly said.
“This is the beginning of a new story, potentially,” Brailly said. Innate Pharma will “continue collaborating with the academic team” on NKp46 and try to develop drug candidates targeting the receptor.
Research is in a “very early stage, with a lot of promises but also a lot of risk” and “years away from the validation of a candidate and the validation of an indication,” Brailly added.
Natural killer cells are one of the first lines of defense of the human body.
Innate Pharma was founded in 1999 by six immunologists, including Brailly and Vivier. The company is 14.8 percent-owned by Bagsvaerd, Denmark-based Novo Nordisk A/S (NOVOB), the world’s biggest maker of insulin, with which Innate Pharma also has a partnership. The French company last year agreed to license an experimental cancer treatment Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY)
To contact the reporter on this story: Albertina Torsoli in Paris at atorsoli@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net
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