Teijin Pharma, Amgen to Jointly Develop Therapies for Autoimmune Diseases

July 31, 2013
Teijin Pharma Limited, the core company of the Teijin Group's healthcare business, announced today that it has entered into a collaborative agreement with Amgen Opening a new window, a leading biotechnology company, to discover, develop, and commercialize small molecule drugs that target RORγ.
Teijin and Amgen will work together to identify candidates that modulate the activity of RORγ, an emerging and promising target for autoimmune disease drug development. RORγ is a key driver of differentiation and regulation of Th17 cells, which play a pivotal role in inflammation and are broadly implicated in autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmune diseases arise when the body's immune system mistakenly identifies its own healthy tissues or cells as foreign and attacks them. The best known of these diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and multiple sclerosis. The number of patients is increasing worldwide and while treatments exist, there is an increasing demand for new treatment options that provide superior efficacy, safety and convenience. Read more