BioSeek, LLC, a subsidiary of Asterand plc, a pioneer in the application of predictive human biology to drug discovery, and Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., an R&D-oriented global specialty pharmaceuticals company, announced that they have signed a new multi-year drug discovery collaboration agreement. Under the three-year research plan, BioSeek will apply its proprietary BioMAP platform in an exclusive collaboration centered on a specific drug target class designated by Ono, performing phenotypic screening and for hit identification, lead optimization and clinical candidate selection. According to the agreement’s terms, BioSeek will receive research funding and milestone payments upon achievement of a certain milestone by a drug candidate discovered under this collaboration. Ono will have worldwide rights to develop and sell all pharmaceutical products discovered through the collaboration.
Martyn Coombs, Chief Executive Officer of Asterand (parent company of BioSeek LLC) commented: “We sincerely look forward to working with Ono as a collaborative partner. Ono’s decision to establish this new relationship with BioSeek is an important endorsement of both our technology platform and collaborative research model. Since the range of activities included spans the breadth of BioMAP’s potential, we expect great success in this collaboration.”
Kazuhito Kawabata, Ph.D., Managing Director, Research Headquarters at Ono noted:
“We highly value BioSeek’s drug discovery technologies (BioMAP systems) in our collaboration. We anticipate that this collaboration will result in identifying unique and innovative pharmaceutical product efficiently in the regions where Ono can exploit its technology and know-how acquired and developed through our research activities”
BioMAP Systems are primary cell-based models of human disease biology, designed to replicate the intricate cell and pathway interactions as they are observed in human pharmacology and toxicology. Depending on their mechanism of action, compounds induce specific patterns of changes in these systems (BioMAP profiles) that can be compared to a large number of reference profiles in the BioMAP Database. Assessment with BioMAP provides early insight into human pharmacological and toxicological properties of compounds, including on- and off-target effects, dose responses, and the discrimination of closely related compounds.
Date: March 22, 2010
Source: BioSeek, LLC
