ChemoCentryx has announced that GlaxoSmithKline has returned to ChemoCentryx all rights to vercirnon (also known as Traficet-EN and CCX282), an inhibitor of the chemokine receptor known as CCR9, for all indications, including the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.

“We are pleased to have a response from GSK which gives us certainty that vercirnon now returns entirely to ChemoCentryx, and which confers to us many degrees of freedom in deciding this valuable asset’s forward path,” stated Thomas J. Schall, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer ChemoCentryx. “Importantly, in addition to regaining rights to the compound, the full data set amassed on all the trials (whether concluded or not) will be transferred to ChemoCentryx. Such data will allow us to assess, alone or potentially with a partner, a remaining, critical clinical trial question: that is, whether the drug maintains remission in Crohn’s disease, as we saw in the maintenance phase of the previously conducted PROTECT-1 trial.”

In August 2006, ChemoCentryx and GSK entered into a worldwide strategic alliance of which vercirnon was a part. Two other development programs remain under the alliance: CCX354, an inhibitor of the chemokine receptor known as CCR1 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis for which GSK exercised its option for an exclusive license in 2011 and CCX168, an inhibitor of the complement receptor C5a, currently in Phase II development for ANCA vasculitis.