Vienna, Austria, September 23, 2009 - Marinomed Biotechnologie GmbH, a company focused on the development of innovative therapies in virology and immunology, announced today the signing of a deal with the Portuguese company BIOALVO under which the two companies will collaborate to find drug candidates screened from BIOALVO’s PharmaBUG marine extract library. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Under the terms of the deal BIOALVO will grant Marinomed access to BIOALVO’s PharmaBUG natural marine extracts. Marinomed will then have exclusive rights to use its own screening platform to identify those with therapeutic potential for indications in the areas of immunology and infectious diseases.
Dr Andreas Grassauer, CEO and co-founder of Marinomed, commented: “We are delighted to have signed this collaboration with BIOALVO. The rich source of natural marine extracts from PharmaBUG offers us a unique resource to screen and hopefully generate new natural leads for development in our core therapeutic indications.”
Helena Vieira, BIOALVO’s CEO, said: “We are very excited to collaborate with one of the leading biotech companies in Austria and we do expect great developments to come out from this partnership in the near future.”
About Marinomed Biotechnologie GmbH
Marinomed is a biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing innovative naturally-derived immunological and antiviral treatments. The Company’s discovery platform, Imuvirex®, is a broad combination of powerful in vitro and in vivo screens that allow product candidates to be selected against viral and immune targets. Marinomed has already used these platforms to discover and develop Carragelose©, a unique broadly active antiviral compound for treating respiratory diseases. Carragelose© is approved for marketing in the EU as an anti-viral nasal spray and is also being investigated for use in a range of other products. The second product candidate, MAM-06.301, is a “first in class” compound in Phase II for allergy. Marinomed has an additional pipeline of preclinical programmes for immune-based disorders and infectious diseases. Located in Vienna, Austria, Marinomed was founded in March 2006 as a spin-off from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Further information on Marinomed can be found at www.marinomed.com
BIOALVO S.A.
BIOALVO is the first Portuguese biotech company working on early stages of drug discovery. BIOALVO designs and develops innovative drug discovery and development programmes that generate potent and efficient drugs aimed at central nervous system and neurodegenerative disorders. Through its proprietary innovative platforms BIOALVO can accelerate and increase the efficiency of drug discovery through HTS and generate true and potent drug candidates for its pipeline and of its partners that will ultimately lead to treatments and cures for human diseases with dramatic social impacts such as amyloidosis, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or cancer. The company operates an alliance-based R&D business model establishing partnership to fill its pipeline and potentiate its partner’s assets, bringing products and solutions to the market. BIOALVO is fully committed in building value by developing a diverse pipeline of products to address unmet healthcare needs. More information on BIOALVO can be found at www.bioalvo.com.
