Novaremed Enters Into an Exclusive Option and License Agreement With NeuroFront for the Non-opioid Neuropathic Pain Treatment, NRD.E1, for Greater China and Singapore
21.7.2022 10:58:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Novaremed AG and NeuroFront Therapeutics (Hong Kong) Limited jointly announce the signing of an exclusive collaboration and commercialization agreement for Novaremed’s innovative non-opioid investigational drug, NRD.E1, being developed for the treatment of diabetes-related neuropathic pain and other neuropathic pain indications. Under the terms of the agreement, Novaremed is eligible to receive from NeuroFront over USD 130 million in option and exercise fees as well as development, regulatory and sales milestone payments plus royalties on net sales.
Under the terms of the agreement, Novaremed will grant NeuroFront an exclusive option to obtain exclusive development, commercialization and manufacturing rights to NRD.E1, Novaremed’s first-in-class, innovative non-opioid investigational drug candidate for the treatment of neuropathic pain. The agreement allows NeuroFront to develop and commercialize NRD.E1 as treatment of painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (PDPN) and any other neuropathic pain indications in the Greater China territory (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) and Singapore.
NeuroFront has the right to exercise its license option at its discretion, but no later than upon completion of the Phase 2b trial of NRD.E1 in PDPN, which will start patient enrollment in coming weeks.
In case NeuroFront successfully develops and registers NRD.E1 in additional neuropathic pain indications in the licensed territory, Novaremed is also eligible to receive additional development and regulatory milestone payments for each additional indication.
“We are very delighted collaborating with NeuroFront to advance our non-opioid neuropathic pain treatment for patients suffering from PDPN and other neuropathic pain indications in China. Currently, approved medications for PDPN provide inadequate pain relief and are associated with many intolerable side effects. Based on both preclinical and clinical data, we believe NRD.E1 has the potential to offer unique benefits and revolutionize the way PDPN is treated,” said Isaac Kobrin, MD, Executive Chairman of Novaremed. “NeuroFront’s development and commercial expertise and its focus on innovative CNS drugs is complementary to our expertise and an ideal fit for Novaremed.”
“There are up to 19 million patients suffering from PDPN in China, but no new innovative drug has been introduced in the market for more than 15 years. There exists a significant unmet medical need and hence a great opportunity for NRD.E1, a first-in-class, novel treatment that has already demonstrated clinical effectiveness in a Phase 2a clinical trial and subsequently received US FDA Fast Track Designation and NIH sponsorship for its Phase 2b trial,” said June Yan, CEO of NeuroFront. “NeuroFront is very excited to partner with Novaremed to change the lives of many PDPN patients in Greater China and Singapore.”
This partnership and the transaction were facilitated with the assistance of Cukierman and Company Investment House.
About NRD.E1 and the treatment of chronic pain
NRD.E1 is an orally active small molecule with a novel mechanism of action by modulating Lyn kinase and has patent protection until 2040. NRD.E1 is Novaremed’s lead drug candidate currently being developed to treat painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (PDPN). Novaremed successfully completed three Phase 1 studies [1] and one double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2a dose-finding proof-of-concept study [2] in which NRD.E1 showed a clinically relevant reduction in patient-reported pain (measured as an improvement in mean neuropathic pain score) and was very well tolerated at all doses tested.
On the basis of these results, NRD.E1 has been granted Fast Track Designation by the US FDA and was selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US as the only oral agent to be included in the NIH-HEAL (Help End Long-term Addiction) program. The NIH will sponsor and execute a 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b study in patients with moderate to severe PDPN in the US. Recruitment into this clinical trial will start in coming weeks.
About NeuroFront
NeuroFront is a China-based clinical stage neuroscience biotech company with a focus on developing and commercializing innovative neuroscience therapies to address unmet needs and improve patients' lives in China and Asia. NeuroFront was established by top-tier life sciences investors, including Nan Fung Life Sciences and Pivotal bioVenture Partners China, and is led by an elite team of neuroscience industry veterans with substantial and compelling expertise in China and globally in both R&D and the commercialization of CNS products. NeuroFront is building a portfolio of innovative, transformative CNS therapies that treat migraine, painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy, depression, ADHD, and other CNS diseases with high unmet medical needs. For more information: www.neurofrontrx.com.
About Novaremed
Novaremed AG, a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is developing a pipeline of innovative medications for chronic pain management to address the high unmet medical need for better pain relief and as an alternative to opioids. Its lead product is NRD.E1, an orally active non-opioid small molecule with a novel mechanism of action, has FDA Fast Track Designation and IND-approval to proceed with a Phase 2b clinical trial for the treatment of painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (PDPN). The earlier stage pipeline addressing chronic neuropathic pain includes the development candidates MP-101 (Phase 2 stage), and MP-103 (preclinical stage), targeting the unmet medical need of prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). Novaremed Ltd (Israel) and Metys Pharmaceuticals AG (Switzerland) are fully owned subsidiaries of Novaremed AG, domiciled in Basel (Switzerland). For more information: www.novaremed.com.
References
[1] Tiecke E., Rainisio M., Guentert T., Müller S., Hochman L., Kaplan E., Mangialaio S. (2022). First-in-human single-ascending-dose, multiple-dose and food interaction studies of NRD.E1, an innovative non-opioid therapy for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Clinical Pharmacology in Drug Development (CPDD). (https://accp1.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpdd.1103)
[2] Tiecke E., Rainisio M., Eisenberg E., Wainstein J., Kaplan E., Silverberg M., Hochman L., Mangialaio S. (2022). NRD.E1, an innovative non-opioid therapy for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy – a randomized proof of concept study. European Journal of Pain. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejp.1989)
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220721005391/en/
Contact information
Contact for Novaremed
Mark Altmeyer, Executive Member of the Board
mark.altmeyer@novaremed.com
Contact for NeuroFront
Bin Yao, VP of Operations and Commercialization
bin.yao@neurofrontrx.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
GenNx360 Capital Partners Promotes Pratik Rajeevan to Partner17.6.2026 14:00:00 EEST | Press release
GenNx360 Capital Partners (“GenNx360”), a New York City-based private equity firm investing in U.S. lower middle market industrial services and business services companies, is thrilled to announce the promotion of Pratik Rajeevan to Partner. Pratik has significant transaction experience having invested in over ten platform companies and 30 add-on investments during his tenure at GenNx360. His experience includes investments in aerospace and defense, utility and environmental services, and testing and inspection services. Pratik is a key leader in investments in NVI, Shenandoah, and Aeron in the GenNx360 Fund IV portfolio. Pratik led successful investments and exits in Miller Environmental and Aero3 in GenNx360 Fund III. Most recently, Pratik was responsible for the firm’s $2 billion exit from Precision Aviation Group, a global aerospace and defense maintenance and repair business in GenNx360 Fund IV. “Pratik is a disciplined and thoughtful investor with significant execution capabiliti
Vercel Brings New Agent Framework, Full-Stack Capabilities, and Enterprise Controls to Its Agentic Infrastructure Platform17.6.2026 13:13:00 EEST | Press release
Today at Ship, its annual conference, Vercel introduced a set of new products that deepen its agentic infrastructure platform trusted by DoorDash, Helly Hansen, OpenAI, Stripe, and The Weather Company. Founder and CEO Guillermo Rauch and other Vercel leaders unveiled the lineup on stage, anchored by three shifts the products address: agents are now the dominant way software gets deployed, every application is becoming agentic, and enterprises need to run agents in production securely and at scale. The transition is well underway. Six months ago, fewer than three percent of deployments to Vercel infrastructure were triggered by coding agents. Agents now account for more than half. Token volume through Vercel's AI Gateway has grown from roughly two trillion to twenty trillion per month over the same period. And over the past year, Vercel has invested heavily in Python and backend frameworks, with a growing share of customers now running backends and databases alongside their frontends. "
NIQ Introduces NIQ Cadence: A Compound AI Operating System for Marketing Effectiveness17.6.2026 13:00:00 EEST | Press release
NIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a global leader in consumer intelligence, today introduced NIQ Cadence, a compound AI operating system built to change how organizations measure marketing performance, optimize budgets, and act on what the data tells them. NIQ Cadence brings data and intelligence into one continuous environment, moving marketers off fragmented reports and onto a single system that empowers decision making. Marketing has never been more complex. Channels keep multiplying, data sits in silos, and the pressure to prove ROI keeps climbing. As a result, most teams still stitch insight and action together by hand, losing time and confidence at every handoff. NIQ Cadence closes that gap with one system where measurement and decision-making finally run together. “Marketing leaders don’t need more reports. They need a better rhythm,” said Jason Tate, General Manager of Marketing Effectiveness at NIQ. “NIQ Cadence moves organizations beyond disconnected data, siloed tools, and disparate insights
WISE Closes Oversubscribed Series D Financing Round of €30 Million, Welcoming ENEA Tech and Biomedical as Strategic New Investor17.6.2026 13:00:00 EEST | Press release
WISE S.p.A., a pioneering medical device company specializing in advanced implantable electrodes for neuromonitoring, neuromodulation, and brain-computer interface (BCI), today announced the successful closing of an oversubscribed Series D financing round totaling €30 million. The round was joined by ENEA Tech and Biomedical, an Italian foundation dedicated to innovation and technology transfer in the biomedical sector, which enters WISE's investor base as a strategic partner. This final closing builds on the first closing of the round completed in June 2024, which included a venture debt facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB) supported by InvestEU, alongside an equity investment from new investor Wallaby S.p.A. — the family office of the Scagliarini family (GVS S.p.A.) — and existing financial partners New Frontier S.r.l., Eureka Venture SGR, and Indaco Ventures SGR. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20
Winning With AI Requires Organizational Transformation, Not Speed of Adoption, Finds New Arthur D. Little Report17.6.2026 13:00:00 EEST | Press release
To successfully embrace the power of AI, businesses need to remove organizational complexity and eliminate unnecessary work, rather than simply using it for fragmented, incremental improvements. Boards must act now to deliver this. That is the key message from AI-First or Disrupted: Beating the Nightmare Competitor, a new report from Arthur D. Little (ADL) based on concrete examples from leading organizations. Within three to five years, AI-first competitors will make faster decisions, have flatter organizations, and operate at lower costs. They will not just optimize handovers between teams, approvals, and reconciliation work; they will eliminate these complex processes entirely. AI is completely changing the economics of work and value creation, removing the need for coordination across multiple teams, while also enabling adaptive, predictive, and personalized products and services. This delivers both lower operational costs and a fundamentally stronger value proposition. However, mo
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom