Pfizer,a world-leading drug producer and marketer,is to acquire FoldRx,a privately held company that specializes in innovative oral medicines to treat diseases caused by protein misfolding.Protein misfolding is increasingly considered an underlying cause of many chronic degenerative conditions.FoldRx's main candidate,tafamidis,is registered as an oral therapy for TTR amyloid polyneuropathy,or ATTR-PN,a progressively fatal genetic neurological disorder.The biotech firm has filed a marketing application for tafamidis with the European Medicines Agency,and the drug has been fast-tracked by the FDA.
To this point,only liver transplants have been available to treat ATTR-PN.Liver transplants are not uniformly effective and are often fatal in their own right.At least 8,000 patients worldwide have ATTR-PN,most of them in the European Union.
TTR is a liver protein that,when defective,gets lodged in peripheral nerve tissue,causing neurological disorders such as ATTR-PN.
FoldRx's small molecule therapeutics,based on proprietary expertise,are also being applied to a discovery program in cystic fibrosis,Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.Pfizer sees the acquisition of FoldRx as a way to bolster its rare disease portfolio and assist the patients with its medical,administrative,manufacturing and marketing proficiencies.
Pfizer(PFE)
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