Otonomy Gets Rights To Ipsen's Gacyclidine Data To Develop OTO-311 For Tinnitus

(RTTNews) - Otonomy, Inc. (OTIC), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on diseases and disorders of the inner and middle ear, Thursday announced that it has reached an exclusive licensing agreement with French pharmaceutical firm Ipsen S.A. (IPSEY) enabling Otonomy to utilize Ipsen's gacyclidine data in the development and registration of OTO-311. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

OTO-311 is Otonomy's sustained-exposure formulation of gacyclidine, an N-Methyl-D-Aspartate or NMDA receptor antagonist, in development for the treatment of tinnitus.

These data include non-clinical studies which supported Ipsen's initiation of clinical studies for systemic administration of gacyclidine, and clinical data from several Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials conducted by Ipsen.

Gacyclidine is a potent and selective antagonist of the NMDA receptor. Clinical studies, including pilot studies conducted with gacyclidine, support the use of NMDA receptor antagonists as a potential treatment for tinnitus.

Tinnitus is the medical term for hearing noise when there is no outside source of the sound.