Grunenthal Presents Strong Pipeline at World's Largest Biotechnology Conference

AACHEN, Germany, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- New chemical entities (NCE) in the areas of pain and inflammation as well as the formulation technology platform INTAC™ are at the core of Grunenthal's presentation at BIO International Convention 2012. The company – which has proven to be successful in bringing innovation to the market – invites the pharmaceutical community to learn about new assets evolving from its research. More than 20,000 participants are expected to attend BIO 2012, the world's largest Biotechnology Conference, taking place in Boston, USA, June 18-22.

"We are excited about our presence at this important partnering event as we truly believe in collaboration to fully exploit the value of our assets. With a strong pipeline and our track record of success, we are very much looking forward to discuss new opportunities. Our ultimate goal is to develop therapeutic options to improve the lives of patients suffering from pain and inflammatory diseases," said Prof. Eric-Paul Paques, President Grunenthal Innovation and Chief Alliance Officer.

Grunenthal is dedicated to research and development
To account for the importance of proprietary research for Grunenthal and ensure the necessary focus, the Strategic Business Unit Grunenthal Innovation has been created. It encompasses the value generation from drug discovery to Proof-of-Concept in humans as well as the development of new drug-delivery technologies. This business model builds on true partnership, especially in co-development and co-commercialization, in order to bring real medical innovation to the market as fast as possible for the benefit of patients.

With regard to NCEs, the focus lies on selected therapeutic areas. The later stage pipeline continues to build on the company's leadership in developing new pain therapeutics, while in parallel a second pillar has been built: inflammation. This approach utilizes the highly interesting overlap and synergies between pain and inflammation, while at the same time establishes a unique position within the broad variety of inflammatory diseases. With its innovative tamper-resistant technology, INTAC®, Grunenthal is leading the field with already two FDA-approved opioid products utilizing this unique technology which is designed to increase the hurdle for misuse and abuse.

"The open-minded combination of internal research, collaboration and networking with academia and biotech has enabled us to create an exciting portfolio. We look forward to sharing more details during the Bio2012 conference in Boston," adds Dr. Klaus-Dieter Langner, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Grunenthal Innovation.

Exemplary key assets underline Grunenthal's innovation capability
Grunenthal's pipeline comprises NCEs in selected therapeutic areas, pain and inflammation, as well as innovative drug-delivery technologies:

NCE - TRPV1
Grunenthal has discovered several proprietary structural classes (small molecules) of TRPV1 antagonists with innovative mechanism of actions aimed at avoiding hyperthermia and heat hypo-sensitivity, typical side effects associated with TRPV1 antagonism, thus offering a potentially new treatment option for pain and selected non-pain indications.

NCE - KCNQ
Grunenthal is actively pursuing the discovery and development of novel, selective, orally-active, small molecule KCNQ channel openers for the treatment of pain and CNS-related disorders.

NCE - Inflammation
Inflammation is Grunenthal´s 2nd strategic NCE pillar next to pain. It is a logical choice considering its proximity to pain with regard to clinical indications, biological pathways, target classes and technological expertise. While the most advanced projects leverage the clinical overlap between pain and inflammation by targeting disease modification in painful diseases, the pipeline also addresses a broader spectrum of inflammatory diseases for which inflammation is the driver of their pathophysiology.

Technology platform: INTAC® Tamper-Resistant Formulation
Grunenthal's tamper-resistant formulation (TRF) technology INTAC® is an approach which can significantly raise the hurdle for abuse of prescription drugs by routes of administration which require the product to first be crushed (chewing, snorting, injecting). Grunenthal's proprietary INTAC® approach is featured in FDA-approved products and the company considers INTAC® to be the leading technology for tamper-resistant opioid products.

About Grunenthal
The Grunenthal Group is an independent, family-owned, international research-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Aachen, Germany. Building on its unique position in pain, its objective is to become the most patient-centric company and thus to be a leader in therapy innovation. 

Grunenthal is one of the last five research-oriented pharmaceutical corporations with headquarters in Germany which sustainably invests in research and development. These investments amounted to about 25 percent of revenues in 2011. Grunenthal's research and development strategy concentrates on select fields of therapy and state-of-the-art technologies. We focus on the intensive search for new ways to treat pain better, more effectively and with fewer side-effects than before. 

Altogether, the Grunenthal Group has affiliates in 26 countries worldwide. Grunenthal products are sold in more than 155 countries and today approx. 4,200 employees are working for the Grunenthal Group worldwide. In 2011, Grunenthal achieved revenues of euro 947 mn.

For more information about the annual BIO International Convention, please visit http://convention.bio.org/.

Contact: Frank Schönrock, Vice President Corporate Communications
Tel.: +49 241 569-1568, Fax: +49 241 569-3539, [email protected]

SOURCE Grunenthal