Indianapolis–based Confluence Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vienna-based AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals AG have reached an agreement to co-develop and market an Indiana University-licensed drug throughout Europe and the Middle East to combat the most commonly known genetic cause of autism.

There are currently no approved treatments for the social and communicative impairments that accompany fragile X syndrome, which affects an estimated 1.7 million people worldwide. About one out of 3,600 to 4,000 males worldwide are born with the full mutation, with most eventually developing fragile X syndrome. About one out of 4,000 to 6,000 females globally are born with the full mutation, but only about half develop features of the syndrome.

The treatment application was developed in 2010 by Dr. Craig A. Erickson, then an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine and currently Confluence’s co-founder and lead scientific adviser. Initial intellectual property rights for the treatment are exclusively licensed to Confluence by the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. For more details, read here: