TenNor Therapeutics (Suzhou) Limited, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to research and development of differentiated products for the treatment of diseases associated with bacterial infections and dysbioses, has announced that it has entered into a research collaboration agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

As part of the agreement, the parties plan to utilize a multitargeting drug conjugation platform developed by TenNor to discover new therapies for the treatment of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) diseases. The agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC.

NTM are mycobacteria other than Mycobacteria tuberculosis and M. leprae. Over the last several years, the incidence of NTM associated pulmonary diseases has risen across the world. NTM can cause serious diseases in the lungs, particularly in patients with underlying pulmonary conditions or compromised immune systems.

The treatment of NTM diseases requires a combination of multiple antibiotics administered for a duration of more than two years – often associated with poor treatment outcomes and side effects. As such, there is an urgent unmet medical need to discover and develop novel therapies for NTM diseases with potential to shorten the duration of treatment with a better safety and efficacy profile.

The collaboration builds on the scientific know-how and background intellectual property of TenNor associated with its multi-targeting drug conjugation technology. The parties agree to collaborate and bring complementary expertise together to discover new treatment modalities for NTM diseases.