French company Vect-Horus, which specializes in the development of vector molecules for the central nervous system, has signed a scientific collaboration agreement with Advanced Accelerator Applications(AAA), a European provider of Molecular Nuclear Medicine (MNM). Financial terms were not disclosed.

The agreement is part of Vect-Horus’ strategy to leverage its technological platform by entering into R&D agreements with pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to generate patentable new chemical entities (NCEs) based on its partners’ drug or imaging candidates.

Vect-Horus specializes in vector molecules that allow delivery of therapeutic and imaging molecules in different organs and cell types, in particular in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). The brain vascular system, known as the blood brain barrier (BBB), considerably restricts the delivery of drugs and imaging agents from blood to nervous tissue. The BBB is largely responsible for the high attrition rate of the pharmaceutical industry in the CNS therapeutic area.

Vect-Horus’ vector technology is dedicated to unleashing the technological locks of the BBB to allow the treatment of CNS pathologies, where major medical needs still remain. This is the second largest therapeutic area in terms of sales turnover in the pharmaceutical market.

Vect-Horus bases its scientific strategy on the principle that the BBB is not only a physical barrier that one needs to cross to deliver drugs to the CNS, but, most importantly, a functional barrier whose transport mechanisms can be used advantageously for drug delivery. The vector molecules developed by Vect-Horus use these endogenous transport mechanisms across the BBB to deliver drugs or imaging agents into the diseased brain.