Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Palladio Biosciences, Inc., a private biopharmaceutical company founded to develop medicines that make a meaningful impact on the lives of patients with orphan diseases of the kidney, announced today that it has acquired global rights to lixivaptan, a selective vasopressin V2 receptor antagonist, from Chiesi USA, Inc. Palladio will develop lixivaptan for Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), an orphan kidney disease for which there are no drug treatments approved in the United States.
“We are very pleased to be developing lixivaptan as our first product,” said Lorenzo Pellegrini, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Palladio. “We believe that lixivaptan may be able to delay the progression of PKD, thus decreasing the need for dialysis and/or kidney transplant and potentially extending the lives of patients with PKD.”
In conjunction with the lixivaptan acquisition, Palladio closed on a Series A venture round led by Medicxi, one of Europe’s largest dedicated life sciences venture capital firms. Michele Ollier, MD, Partner and co-founder of Medicxi, and Jonathan Edwards, Ph.D. principal at Medicxi, have joined the Board of Directors of Palladio Biosciences.
"We are excited to be supporting Palladio Biosciences," said Michele Ollier, MD. "Lixivaptan represents a late stage, de-risked orphan development program in an area of high unmet need with no treatment approved in the US."
"We are pleased to have completed this transaction with Palladio Biosciences in an effort to bring this important medicine to PKD patients worldwide," stated Ken McBean, President and CEO at Chiesi USA, Inc. "As a company focused on developing treatments to address important unmet medical needs, we are glad that Palladio is committed to the development of this product."
