Denovo Biopharma Receives Global Rights To A Novel Late-Stage Drug For Alzheimer's Disease From Orion Corporation For Development As A Personalized Medicine

San Diego, CA /PRNewswire/ - Denovo Biopharma LLC, a pioneer in applying precision medicine to develop innovative therapies, today announced it has licensed ORM-12741 from Orion Corporation. Denovo gains global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize ORM-12741.

ORM-12741 is a selective, potent, first-in-class antagonist targeting the Alpha2C adrenoceptor (AR) that may be useful for neuropsyciatric indications such as Alzheimer's Disease, schizophrenia, and depression, among others. To date, more than 540 patients across 11 clinical studies have been dosed with ORM-12741, and the drug was found to be safe and well-tolerated; this clinical data comprises a rich data set for Denovo to conduct its biomarker discovery.

"With this license of ORM-12741 (now known as DB105), Denovo has four late-stage compounds in oncology and neurology, and we plan on continuing to expand our portfolio in these two major therapeutic areas," said Michael Haller, Denovo's Chief Business Officer. "Using Denovo's unique biomarker approach, we have pushed our lead project DB102 into a pivotal phase 3 trial as first-line therapy for the treatment of DLBCL."

"While most Alzheimer's Disease programs target beta amyloid and tau, DB105 offers a distinct mechanism of action by targeting the alpha-2c adrenoceptor," said Wen Luo, CEO of Denovo. "Despite the failures of most Alzheimer's drug development programs across the pharmaceutical industry, we believe our biomarker platform and targeted personalized medicine approaches may provide a breakthrough to address this serious unmet medical need."

About Denovo Biopharma
Denovo Biopharma is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that applies novel biomarker approaches to re-evaluate medicines that have failed in broad patient populations. The company seeks to discover genomic biomarkers correlated with patients' responses to drug candidates retrospectively. Denovo then designs and executes efficient clinical trials in targeted patient populations to optimize the probability of a successful trial. Denovo is enrolling patients in the U.S. and China with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in a Phase 3 clinical trial for its lead product candidate, DB102, which was in-licensed from Eli Lilly. The company has three additional late stage programs targeting three major CNS diseases: DB103, for schizophrenia, and DB104, for depression, and DB105, for Alzheimer's Disease. For additional information please visit www.denovobiopharma.com.