Hydra Bioscience partners with Pfizer

Hydra Biosciences, a Cambridge-based biotech firm, said today that it reached a collaboration agreement with Pfizer Global Research and Development for its drugs that seek to reduce pain from conditions like post surgical pain, Osteo and rheumatoid arthritis.

According to Hydra's press release, Pfizer will pay for all research and development in exchange for exclusive access to Hydra's current patents for drugs that act directly on ion channels, prominent components of the nervous system, to treat various forms of pain such as acute, chronic and neuropathic. Pfizer will also be entitled to exclusive license to commercialize any new drug developed from the collaboration, and will pay royalties to Hydra once the drugs hit the market.

"Today’s collaboration with Pfizer, a leader in the pain field, represents an important validating step for this novel approach for the treatment of pain and for our core ion channel technology," said Russell Herndon, chief executive of Hydra.
(By Se Young Lee, Globe correspondent)