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San Jose, California—Tacere Therapeutics, Inc., an RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapeutics company, announced today that Pfizer has exercised the option, granted in a collaboration and license agreement executed in December 2007, to further develop and commercialize Tacere’s Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) compounds.
"After two years of collaboration with Pfizer, and demonstration of an excellent safety profile in both mice and non-human primates, Pfizer has exercised its option for an exclusive license to our RNAi-HCV family of compounds," said Sara M. Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Tacere. "This is a significant achievement for the field of expressed RNAi therapeutics and an exciting advance for our unique technology. The lead clinical candidate is a new class of agent containing three separate RNAi elements, simultaneously targeting three different sites of the Hepatitis C virus, and encapsidated in an adeno-associated virus (AAV) protein coat. In preclinical animal studies, we have demonstrated that a single intravenous injection of our agent results in penetration of hepatocytes (the site of HCV replication)
Mike Catelani, Chairman, President and CFO of Tacere, stated, "We are very excited that Pfizer has exercised its option to fully partner our RNAi-HCV family of compounds and has paid to Tacere a significant option exercise fee. Further, Tacere and Pfizer have agreed to maintain their partnership for another year in order to complete regulatory toxicology studies, with Pfizer maintaining funding for all aspects of this collaboration."
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