Nice: IRIS Pharma and OPIA Technologies announce Licence Agreement

OPIA Technologies developp innovative medical devices for ophthalmology in animal studies

Iris Pharma, a world leader CRO specialized in ophthalmology, and OPIA Technologies, a company developping innovative medical devices for ophthalmology, announced they have entered into a long-term licence agreement for the development of EYEPRIM®,OPIA's main device platform, in animal studies.

As part of the agreement, Iris Pharma will obtain the exclusive licence for the use of EYEPRIM® device to perform ocular surface biopsies of the living eye in its preclinical research activities.

"Gaining access to intellectual property and innovative medical device benefit our customers, and Iris Pharma sees significant value from this license agreement," said Dr. Pierre-Paul Elena, Founder and CEO, Iris Pharma.

"Using this new device into our preclinical models will improve them greatly. We will be able for example to assess many other endpoints and will obtain for sure outstanding results. Furthermore, by setting up such a device in animal we will give the veterinarians access to a very helpful tool for better diagnosis."

OPIA's patented sampling device is a reliable and efficient tool to perform conjunctival impressions. The conjunctival impression technique allows the most superficial layer of the conjunctival epithelial cells (both goblet and non-goblet cells) to be collected from the conjunctival mucosa in a quasi-painless and non-invasive way, for the purpose of analyses and diagnosis. EYEPRIM® device should become a diagnostic test template in the near future.

"Through this agreement, we are providing Iris Pharma access to our patented technology which they can use in their continued development of high level and expert preclinical services," said Pierre Roy, President, OPIA Technologies. "The outcome of such an agreement is very promising, thus, the initial results of our collaboration will be presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) 2011 Annual Meeting in May on a poster on the evaluation of membranes material for impression cytology."

More information: www.iris-pharma.com