Almirall, Inserm Transfert enter agreement for vitiligo research

Almirall S.A. and Inserm Transfert have entered an agreement to advance research in vitiligo treatment, the two entities announced in a press release.

The licensing and research collaboration agreement will focus on developing medicines that modulate the Wnt pathway.

Inserm Transfert, a private subsidiary of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), signed the collaboration agreement on behalf of Inserm, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire of Nice and University of Nice Côte d’Azur.

“Vitiligo can have a huge impact on patients' quality of life. We are pleased to announce this new collaboration with a center of excellence such as Inserm to develop innovative treatments for this skin condition. This milestone once again demonstrates Almirall's commitment to improving the lives of patients in an underserved disease where there are still significant unmet needs,” Karl Ziegelbauer, PhD, chief scientific officer of Almirall, said in the release.

Researchers at the Mediterranean Centre for Molecular Medicine will work with Almirall, which has been granted global rights to Inserm’s background patents of Wnt agonists for vitiligo treatment.

“It is mandatory to induce the differentiation and the proliferation of melanocyte stem cells for promoting the repigmentation of the lesions. The Wnt signaling pathway is key in this process and we demonstrated that this pathway is significantly altered in vitiligo skin,” Thierry Passeron, MD, PhD, professor of dermatology at University Hospital of Nice and laboratory head at Inserm, said in the release. “This partnership will allow developing topical compounds to stimulate this pathway and to repigment vitiligo lesions.”