Melodia Therapeutics has signed an exclusive licence agreement to obtain the global development, manufacturing and commercialisation rights for Alivexis’ MDI-0151, a cathepsin C inhibitor.

The clinical candidate, stemming from Alivexis’ MOD-A discovery programme, is poised for investigational new drug application (IND)-enabling activities.

This will aid the commencement of Phase I/Phase IIa trials of the asset for refractory inflammatory ailments caused by increased neutrophil activation, such as ANCA-associated vasculitis.

The collaboration between Alivexis and Melodia will utilise their capabilities in drug discovery research and development to achieve clinical proof of concept for MDI-0151 in diseases linked to neutrophils.

Alivexis is entitled to receive an upfront payment from Melodia, with additional development and sales milestone payments up to Y42.7bn ($275m).

Alivexis will also receive royalty payments on net product sales that reach the market.

The company is eligible for warrants to subscribe for shares in Melodia.

Alivexis CEO S Roy Kimura stated: “This event marks a significant milestone for Alivexis and serves as validation of our drug discovery research and development team and platform, our proprietary pipeline of discovery programmes, and our business model involving the use of our cutting-edge platform to accelerate clinical candidate discovery for diseases with high unmet need.

“This is the first of many licensing and collaboration agreements that we anticipate from our maturing portfolio of IND-ready candidate molecules in our pipeline and our unique and proven discovery platform.

“We are confident that the Melodia team will be able to take our candidate molecule through clinical trials and ultimately help many patients in need suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases.”