In the current environment, the large commitments that pharmaceutical companies must make to fully leverage late-stage pipelines often limit the resources needed to advance early-phase candidates.
Companies are forced to make trade-off decisions without clinical data and compounds are often shelved without compelling rationale. Among these compounds are assets of substantial but unrealized medical and commercial value.
Flexion is forming partnerships with a small number of pharmaceutical firms; in these partnerships, Flexion provides both the resource and expertise to quickly and efficiently advance delayed or de-resourced assets to clinical Proof of Concept.
Once an asset shows therapeutic potential at Proof of Concept, Flexion will either return the asset to the partner for subsequent development, or advance its commercialization independently. The Flexion leadership has taken seven New Molecular Entities through global submission and approval.
"Because Flexion, like Chorus, can do this initial POC work with a lot less money and time than other companies, it can theoretically soak up a number of industry's orphan candidates. And because it's taking a lot less financial risk per molecule, Flexion should be able to afford to offer partners clawback rights to at least some of their candidates." Roger Longman, Start Up, Dec 2007