The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) Creates International Partnership with Griffith University's Eskitis Institute in Queensland, Australia

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) today announced an international collaboration with Griffith University’s Eskitis Institute in Queensland, Australia.

In June 2008, the Province of British Columbia and the State of Queensland signed a broad ‘Statement of Intent’ to facilitate collaboration between the jurisdictions, with one particular focus being the life sciences and biotech sector. We believe that the collaboration announced today marks only the beginning of a further exchange of knowledge and expertise across our respective regions,” said Karimah Es Sabar, Senior Vice President, Business & Strategic Affairs at CDRD.

This particular collaboration materialized when a joint grant proposal received the necessary funding from the Queensland Government to support an alliance between Griffith University’s Eskitis Institute, the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre, the Centre for Drug Research and Development, and the Vancouver Prostate Centre.

“Each organization within this international partnership can contribute complementary strengths and resources with the aim of discovering and commercializing new medical therapeutics,” said Natalie Dakers, CEO at CDRD.

The Eskitis Institute has built up a “Nature Bank” of more than 200,000 optimized natural product fractions. CDRD and Eskitis will work together to test these large libraries of chemicals for their ability to modify the disease target, followed by intensive chemistry efforts to synthesize the active compound.

For more information about Griffith University’s Eskitis Institute, please visit: http://www.griffith.edu.au/science/eskitis-institute-cell-molecular-therapies

About CDRD

The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) (www.cdrd.ca) provides drug development expertise and infrastructure to enable researchers from leading academic and health research institutions to advance promising, early-stage drug candidates. CDRD combines its drug development platform with a commercial arm, which licenses technologies from affiliated institutions and establishes working collaborations with other biotech and life sciences companies. The Government of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence program has recognized CDRD as a Centre of Excellence in Commercialization in Research (CECR).

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