PharmaTelevision - Addex Pharmaceuticals and the Pursuit of the True Innovation

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Video title: Addex Pharmaceuticals and the Pursuit of the True Innovation

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In this conversation with Dr. Vincent Mutel, co-founder and CEO of Addex Pharmaceuticals, Fintan Walton reveals how the Addex mission—to achieve true innovation—has contributed to the tremendous success of this young biotech company. Addex discovers and develops allosteric modulators, with a focus on those that target G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), a class of receptors that have proven therapeutic utility in many diseases. Dr. Mutel believes that this kind of innovative approach is the mission of biotech and that this innovation is the “currency” of biotech and will provide the necessary funding for worthwhile projects. Addex has seen its own work validated through high-profile deals with Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. and a 2007 IPO offering that was one of the largest in Europe for several years.

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Addex Pharmaceuticals: Origins and the choice of allosteric molecules.

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaVentures Business Review here in Madrid. On this show I have Vincent Mutel, who is the Vice Chairman and CEO of Addex Pharmaceuticals welcome to the show.

Vincent Mutel:

Welcome and good morning and happy to be together with you today.

Fintan Walton:

Vincent one of the key things here is you are a founder of Addex and you've had a long history in the pharmaceutical industry itself and why did you set up Addex?

Vincent Mutel:

I think we, all founders as we are, we were four founders at the beginning of the company came from the pharma industry. And I've been working in this industry for lets say 15-years, I was working at Roche in Basel in the CNS area and decided in 2001 that I think I knew enough about this drug, I was having large experience in the large pharma organization and it was time for me to look for another challenge in particular as I said as a joke, we were always you know criticizing to a certain extent management and I said to myself now it's time to show and to see if it's so easy on the other side.

Fintan Walton:

Right. So but Addex itself has been incredibly successful since those early days when you thought that way and one of the key things I suppose is your choice of molecules that you want to try and discover and these where the allosteric-molecules, why did you choose that particular area?

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Vincent Mutel

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Vincent Mutel is the Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Addex Pharmaceuticals. Before co-founding Addex in 2002, he served as Head of the Pharmacology Group in the Central Nervous System diseases department at Roche, where he coordinated the activity of several research laboratories involved in drug discovery and development. As Head of the Pharmacology Group, he was a member of the Board of Research Area Heads and contributed to strategy setting for the Roche CNS Research Department. Dr. Mutel has a broad experience in drug development, from screening through to the start of human clinical development. He is co-author of more than 60 research publications and co-inventor on 20 patents for CNS drugs.

Addex Pharmaceuticals

Addex Pharmaceuticals discovers and develops allosteric-modulators; small molecule therapeutics agents that may offer more sophisticated ways to normalize biological signaling perturbed by disease compared to classical orthosteric agonist or antagonist drugs. The Addex discovery capability has been validated through three deals with big pharma. The first deal, with Johnson & Johnson, is focused on development of allosteric-modulators of metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 mGluR2 for anxiety and schizophrenia. The second and third deals, with Merck & Co., are focused on developing allosteric-modulators targeting mGluR4 and mGluR5 to treat Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia, respectively. The company has a growing pipeline of products in clinical or preclinical development for major market indications including: gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD); migraine; anxiety; smoking cessation; depression; spasticity; type II diabetes and fertility. In May 2007, Addex completed an initial public offering on the SWX Swiss Exchange, raising CHF137 million ($111 million/83 million). The IPO was the largest biotech IPO in Europe in three years.