Edinburgh life sciences firm inks Johnson & Johnson tie-up

An Edinburgh-based drug discovery company pursuing the discovery of new cancer treatments has joined forces with two arms of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson.

Pete Finan heads up AdoRx, which was established in 2017. Picture: contributed.

AdoRx Therapeutics has agreed a strategic collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation and the Lung Cancer Initiative at the pharma group to develop novel therapeutics to treat lung cancer, helping bring treatments into clinical development.

Under the terms of the agreement, AdoRx has granted an exclusive option to research, develop and commercialise novel antagonists in its portfolio.

The groups will collaborate on drug discovery and preclinical development activities, and financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

AdoRx chief executive Pete Finan said: “We are delighted to be teaming up with Johnson & Johnson and their Lung Cancer Initiative less than two years after the creation of AdoRx.” He added: “The collaboration will facilitate the progression of [our] fit-for-purpose receptor antagonists into clinical development.”

The life sciences business was founded in 2017 by healthcare investor Epidarex Capital, and said in June last year that it had closed an initial $10 million (£7.5m) funding round financed by Epidarex and the oncology-focused CRT Pioneer Fund.

It also says its team has 60 years’ experience of drug discovery in biotech and pharma.