Saffron Walden, UK and Geneva, Switzerland; 16 April 2009 – BioFocus DPI, a leading provider of gene-to-drug candidate discovery services, and the not-for-profit organization Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) announce the start of a collaboration to identify new natural product and small molecules that demonstrate anti-malarial activity.
Prior to the collaboration announced today, MMV had acquired access to BioFocus DPI’s natural product and SoftFocus® compound collections, which gave hits with anti-malarial activity in disease-specific assays. The aim of the current collaboration is to determine which of the small molecules in these collections show activity, with the intention to further optimize these hits as anti-malarial therapeutics.
“At BioFocus DPI we are pleased that our natural product and SoftFocus collections have yielded hits showing anti-malarial activity in multiple infected erythrocyte assays. These results show how well our libraries are suited for finding new leads in infectious disease,” stated Dr Chris Newton, Senior VP of BioFocus DPI.
“Screening of BioFocus DPI’s compound collections has generated many potential anti-malarial product leads of high quality. This is an exciting find, as MMV is proactively seeking for its portfolio new anti-malarial compounds that can be developed into effective medicines to not only treat the lethal falciparum malaria, but also tackle artemisinin resistance, stop malaria transmission and treat the rarer plasmodium vivax malaria. We look forward to working with BioFocus DPI to develop novel anti-malarial therapeutics that will help ultimately eradicate this fatal disease,” said Tim Wells, Chief Scientific Officer MMV.
BioFocus DPI natural compounds
Natural compounds are a major source of new medicines, as nearly half of drugs brought to market in the last 20 years originated from compounds derived from nature. With their unique organic characteristics, natural compounds are especially important for drug development against certain target classes. BioFocus DPI’s natural compound collections are based on bacterial and fungal sources, offering characteristics differentiating these from synthetic chemistry collections, including high chemical and functional diversity, potent pharmacological activities over a broad range of biological targets, and desirable physicochemical properties.
BioFocus DPI SoftFocus libraries
BioFocus DPI’s focused libraries are designed to modulate targets while adhering to drug-like criteria. These molecules have excellent tractability for hit finding and lead optimization thereby maximizing development potential. Screening of a BioFocus DPI library routinely generates critical SAR which considerably reduces subsequent optimization time. Each library is designed to inhibit key drugable gene families, an approach proven successful through published patents and papers.
About BioFocus DPI
BioFocus DPI aims to expand its partners’ drug pipelines by accelerating the gene-to-candidate discovery process. This is achieved through a comprehensive discovery platform, which includes target discovery in human primary cells, focused as well as diverse compound libraries, in vitro and cell-based screening, structural biology, medicinal chemistry, ADME/PK services, supported by unique chemogenomic and informatics tools, and compound library acquisition, storage and distribution services. As the service division of Galapagos, BioFocus DPI has over 250 employees in four countries worldwide.
Visit BioFocus DPI’s new website at www.biofocusdpi.com.
About Medicines for Malaria Venture
Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) is a not-for-profit organization created to discover, develop and deliver effective and affordable anti-malarial drugs through public-private partnerships. MMV is currently managing the largest-ever portfolio of anti-malarial projects in collaboration with over 100 pharmaceutical, academic, and endemic-country partners in 38 countries. The portfolio includes 19 completely new classes of compounds. New and improved treatment solutions are urgently needed for the 2.4 billion people at risk from malaria. MMV is working to ensure that its products will have the greatest possible public health impact and, most importantly, save lives.
