Debiopharm and the US biotech company Mercury Therapeutics have signed an exclusive licence agreement for the development and commercialisation of the Swiss company's Debio 0930.

The field of acute ischemic stroke is highly promising but enormously risky and fraught with disappointment. With the exception of tPA, no one has ever demonstrated a pharmaco-mechanism which produces efficacy in the clinic. For now, the key to success for companies will be good efficacy and safety data. Start-ups will need partners, but even alliances with major pharmaceutical companies don’t represent a short-term validation of their efforts, since even big companies are stumbling in this field.