Protalix, Secarna Pharmaceuticals enter collaboration and option agreement

Protalix (PLX) and Secarna Pharmaceuticals announced that they have entered into a collaboration and option agreement. Under this agreement, the companies have agreed to partner in the discovery of novel antisense oligonucleotide therapies against multiple targets for rare renal indications. As part of the collaboration, Protalix has selected pharmaceutical targets with fundamental biological roles in rare renal indications and Secarna will apply OligoCreator, its proprietary AI-empowered oligonucleotide discovery and development platform, to design and profile ASO candidates against those targets. By jointly applying their research and development expertise, it is the companies’ goal to advance the programs from preclinical stage to clinical trials. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Secarna grants Protalix an option to an exclusive, worldwide milestone and royalty bearing license to further develop, market and commercialize therapeutic programs.