Benzinga | Oct 18, 2021 08:05AM EDT

Centessa Pharmaceuticals Subsidiary, Orexia Therapeutics, And Schrdinger Announce Collaboration To Discover Novel Orexin Receptor Agonists

Discovery efforts will focus on small molecules with differentiated clinical profiles to harness the broad potential of orexin agonism across different indications

First time Schr?dinger is applying its computational platform in an orexin agonist setting enabled by Orexia's structural biology capabilities

NEW YORK & BOSTON & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Schr?dinger (NASDAQ:SDGR) and Centessa Pharmaceuticals plc ("Centessa") (NASDAQ:CNTA), together with subsidiary Orexia Therapeutics ("Orexia"), today announced an exclusive collaboration focused on the discovery of novel therapeutics targeting the orexin-2 receptor (OX2R), which is known to play a role in a broad spectrum of sleep disorders, including narcolepsy. The collaboration provides Orexia with substantial access to Schr?dinger's entire computational platform as well as Schr?dinger's extensive expertise in ultra-large-scale deployment of its technology.

Orexia will leverage Schr?dinger's computational platform, including LiveDesign and Free Energy Perturbation (FEP+), which facilitates high-performance calculations for drug discovery to enable accurate prediction of potency at the target of interest. The collaboration will be enabled by Orexia's structural biology capabilities, including the stabilized OX2R StaR(r) protein exclusively licensed from Sosei Heptares, and high-resolution crystal structures in agonist conformation. The collaboration represents the first time Schr?dinger's technology will be applied in an orexin agonist setting at scale.

"While prevailing treatment approaches only address the symptoms associated with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), we believe orexin agonists offer a disruptive approach, with the capacity to address the underlying pathology of the disorder. Orexia's utilization of OX2R stabilized receptors (StaR(r)technology) provides the foundation for R&D which could significantly benefit patients with NT1. We look forward to partnering with Schr?dinger to complement the discovery and development work we are conducting at Orexia," said Saurabh Saha, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of Centessa.

"Orexia's asset-centric approach enables us to pick the best technology partners for discovery and development. While we expect to enter IND enabling studies with our lead molecule next year, we are also delighted to work with Schr?dinger to enable the acceleration of our discovery efforts for molecules with potentially differentiated clinical profiles. Indeed, the therapeutic possibilities of orexin agonists extend well beyond NT1 into other rare primary hypersomnia disorders, such as narcolepsy type 2 and idiopathic hypersomnia, and into a broad range of additional indications characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness. We are committed to exploring the full potential of orexin agonists to help patients across a wide range of indications," said Mario Alberto Accardi, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Orexia.

"Our research collaboration with Orexia is illustrative of a new approach to help support discovery efforts at biotech companies, where we apply our technology at scale on behalf of our collaborator," stated Ramy Farid, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Schr?dinger. "The Orexia team brings deep experience in orexin biology and structure-based drug design, and we're excited to provide Orexia with large-scale access to our leading computational approaches and expertise to accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics targeting orexin biology."

Under the terms of the agreement, Orexia will be responsible for preclinical research activities, clinical development and commercialization of future product candidates discovered under the collaboration. Schr?dinger will receive an upfront software access payment and may become eligible to receive certain preclinical, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, as well as low single digit royalties on global net sales.