Dr Moqrich is Research Director at the IBDM laboratory (part of the CNRS, the French National Center for Scientific Research) and cofounder of Tafalgie Therapeutics. Th award recognizes the major discoveries he and his team have made, which have contributed to substantial advances in biology, and more specifically in pain research and innovative pain treatments.

SATT Sud-Est is the reference technology transfer office (TTO) for Aix-Marseille University and the CNRS unit of Dr. Moqrich. The SATT was instrumental in the valorization of the work culminating in the discovery of the therapeutic potential of the TAFA4 protein as a painkiller. This valorization involved several funding mechanisms and a series of administrative interventions with the CNRS and AMU to facilitate the launch of Tafalgie Therapeutics. In particular, SATT Sud-Est managed the TAFA4 patent and its first licensing agreement with Tafalgie Therapeutics, with SATT Sud-Est as one of the first investors.

During the awards ceremony, Aziz Moqrich presented his discovery of a new generation of non-opioid painkillers and the work of Tafalgie Therapeutics in this field.

Congratulations on this well-deserved honor! 

“This prize is an honor and a source of pride, recognizing all the work accomplished in basic and translational research and leading to major advances in our understanding of the mechanisms involved in pain signals and the role of the TAFA4 protein. I would like to dedicate this award to the members of my IBDM research group. Their work has been remarkable, and I would like to thank them warmly for making this collective success possible.

All these years of research and the expertise of our teams mean that today, we are one of the most innovative laboratories in the field of pain. Accompanied by the biotech company Tafalgie Therapeutics, which I cocreated, we now have everything we need to pursue applied research and to valorize all the highly promising results we have obtained in fundamental research.

Our ambition is to develop the first non-opioid drug candidates for treating all types of pain, without the development of tolerance and with far fewer side effects than those observed with most current analgesics”

Aziz Moqrich