St George Street Capital (SGSC), a UK registered charity, has signed a license agreement with AstraZeneca to develop two compounds in the clinic: one for idiopathic male infertility, and the other for renal transplant rejection. The agreement enables additional compounds to be added in the future.

The two compounds to be developed are part of AstraZeneca’s Emerging Innovation Unit, which explores drug re-purposing for novel indications by working with academic institutions through its Open Innovation programme. The agreement brings together complementary skills from both parties, to manage the clinical trials of the two compounds for the benefit of patients.

Following clinical development, AstraZeneca has a right of first negotiation to take the compounds back for further development through to Phase III and commercialisation. Alternatively, rights may be explored with a third party.

The assets have met the rigorous criteria of SGSC to fit with its charitable mandate of accelerating treatments to patients that fulfil an unmet medical need, such that patients may truly benefit as quickly as possible.

Male infertility is a neglected human need which has until now received insufficient attention. With a massive increase in kidney failure across the world, patients will benefit from an improvement in the success of renal transplantation.

SGSC has a £120m fund committed to clinical trials and is keen to develop further relationships to help unlock the potential of clinical-ready assets, and progress them through the clinic, such that patients can receive much-needed therapies.

Professor John Martin, Chairman of SGSC, says: “The Charity has formed a strong partnership of mutual understanding with AstraZeneca, in which both parties share a common value: the acceleration of vitally needed medicines into clinical practice. The charitable nature of SGSC is original in this field, allowing decisions to be made rapidly with the focus only on patient need. As a practicing doctor who understands the wide therapeutic needs of patients it is a pleasure to work with AstraZeneca and with the dedicated team at SGSC. Without the SGSC-AstraZeneca partnership, these potential medicines would not be developed.”

Mene Pangalos, EVP, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca, comments: “We are passionate about working openly with the best partners to advance medical science. Our Open Innovation programme epitomises our open, collaborative approach to R&D and we look forward to working with St George Street Capital as they investigate these two molecules, in male infertility and renal transplant indications.”

About St George Street Capital (SGSC)

Founded in 2017, St George Street Capital is a new type of charity, sourcing investment to fast track clinical trials, so we can get new treatments as quickly as possible to the people who need them.

We are a group of experienced Life Sciences professionals from industry, academia and the charitable sector who believe there is an opportunity to get more therapies to the patients that need them. The SGCG group includes Professor John Martin from UCL, Professor Pete Coffey from UCL, Dave Tapolczay former CEO at LifeArc and Mike Johnson former Director of LifeArc.

The purpose SGSC is to accelerate treatments to patients in areas of high unmet medical need where a potential treatment has stalled in pharma’s pipeline.
We take only clinical ready assets, driven by the quality of the science, irrespective of the therapeutic area.

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