Sunesis gets milestone in J&J accord

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm, says that it has earned a preclinical milestone payment from drug major Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, under their drug discovery collaboration agreement.

The two USA-based firms entered into a research accord in May 2002 to discover oral small-molecule enzyme inhibitors for the treatment of major chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The recent milestone payment was triggered by J&JPRD's selection of a compound targeting the cathepsin S enzyme as a development candidate. Under the terms of the deal, Sunesis has the potential to receive additional development milestones from J&JPRD, as well as royalty payments based on future product sales.

"We believe that a small-molecule inhibitor of cathepsin S will provide a useful approach to treating certain inflammatory conditions and we are pleased by J&JPRD's advancement of a compound from our collaboration into development," said Bob McDowell, vice president of research at Sunesis.