Cortex of Irvine, Georgia Tech Sign Research Accord

Cortex Pharmaceuticals said Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with the Georgia Institute of Technology to share royalties and licensing fees generated by drugs that they may jointly develop.

Under the agreement, Cortex said it would receive “worldwide exclusive rights to commercialize potential drugs,” although it would pass on an undisclosed part of the financial gains to Georgia Tech.

For a year scientists at Cortex and Georgia Tech have been working to develop a drug to prevent the deterioration of brain cells that occurs after strokes, heart attacks, near-drownings and other occurrences that interrupt the flow of blood to the brain.

Dr. Gary S. Lynch, a Cortex founder and professor at UC Irvine’s Bonney Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, has long been associated with his study of calpain, a naturally occurring enzyme that he believes helps to form memories by changing the shape of brain cells.

Another of Lynch’s theories is that when the brain is deprived of blood, too much calpain is produced in the brain cells and causes their destruction. One of Cortex’s main objectives since it was founded in 1987 has been to develop a drug that would block the action of calpain inside threatened brain cells.

Vaughan Shalson, Cortex’s president and chief executive officer, said: “These inhibitors hold the promise of reducing mortality and limiting the severity of memory loss, paralysis and other tragic consequences of stroke, the third-leading cause of death and the leading cause of adult disability.”

Scott Hagen, Cortex’s vice president of finance and administration, said about a year ago that Cortex had begun research collaboration with Dr. James C. Powers, a professor of chemistry at Georgia Tech, who has designed artificial inhibitors of enzymes similar to calpain. Hagen said Powers has been trying to develop synthetic compounds with structures that Cortex has specified are needed to block calpain.

Hagen said Cortex and Georgia Tech have already developed promising compounds that are protected by several issued and pending patents.

The next step, Hagen said, will be for Cortex to begin a partnership with a major pharmaceutical company to do the clinical testing, manufacturing and eventual marketing of a drug.

Cortex, he said, is holding discussions “with several major pharmaceutical companies regarding commercialization of our products, and they are expressing particular interest in our calpain inhibitor program. But it is difficult to forecast how long the process will take.”

Hagen predicted that it will be another year or two before any calpain-blocking drug is ready for human tests.