KineMed, Organon explore new apps for discontinued drugs

EMERYVILLE, Calif.—KineMed, Inc., a pathway-based drug discovery and development company, and Organon announced today that they have signed an agreement to discover new applications for multiple drug candidates.

Under the agreement, KineMed will apply its proprietary technologies, AquaTag and KineMarker, to find alternative applications for discontinued compounds formerly in the clinical-stage pipeline of Organon, a manufacturer and marketer of prescription medications with its head offices split between Roseland, N.J., and Oss, The Netherlands.

Once therapeutic utility is established for a selected drug candidate, KineMed and Organon will jointly determine a development and commercialization path, including a potential joint effort.

"Our focus at KineMed is to maximize the value of drug compounds, applying our technology to discover indications that would have otherwise gone undetected and thereby enabling new avenues for drug development and commercialization," says David Fineman, president and CEO of KineMed. "We are pleased to announce the collaboration with Organon, which is a significant demonstration of our ability to forge partnerships with healthcare organizations that are leading the innovation of new therapies worldwide."

David Nicholson, executive VP of global research and development at Organon, adds, "We at Organon are dedicated to maximize the potential of R&D compounds. KineMed's ability to measure the outputs of complex pathways in in vivo studies may lead to the discovery of new indications and as such holds great promise."

KineMed is employing its proprietary biomarker technology to measure the real-time activity of drugs in whole body systems. KineMed is developing therapeutics both on its own and with pharma collaborators, and its technology reportedly expedites the drug development process and has demonstrated results in metabolic disorders, neurodegeneration, diseases of inflammation and cancer, among other conditions.

Organon, which sells products in more than 100 countires, operates primarily in the core therapeutic fields of fertility, gynecology, anesthesia and neuroscience, but also conducts research in such areas as immunology and oncology.