Auris Medical Holding AG, a clinical-stage company dedicated to developing therapeutics that address unmet medical needs in otolaryngology, has formed a drug discovery collaboration with King’s College London, UK. Professor David Thurston of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science will lead a team at King’s to develop and optimize a range of specific small molecules for Auris Medical’s AM-102 project. The AM-102 compounds bind to a novel, undisclosed drug target for treating certain types of tinnitus. The collaboration project draws on earlier work performed for Auris Medical by the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King’s under the leadership of Professor Patrick Doherty and Gareth Williams.

“We are very excited to continue and expand the collaboration for our AM-102 project with King’s College London,” said Thomas Meyer, founder, chairman and chief executive officer, Auris Medical. “Drawing on our research partners’ unique experience and great skills in drug discovery, we expect the collaboration to take us one important further step forward towards the development of a potent second generation tinnitus treatment.”

From the research project Auris Medical aims to select a lead compound for further preclinical and subsequent clinical development. The drug target for AM-102 was identified and validated previously through a collaboration with another research institution.