Basel, Switzerland and Lund, Sweden, February 5, 2014 – BioVersys and SARomics Biostructures announced today that they will collaborate and bring together their complementary expertise to tackle antimicrobial resistance in an international project supported by the European initiative EUROSTARS.
Antimicrobial resistance represents a major threat to public health worldwide and is far from being adequately addressed today, as evidenced by the low number of new products in clinical development. The SARTRIC project addresses this deficiency by restoring antibiotic activity by blocking the transcriptional activation of resistance genes with small molecules and thus restoring the efficacy of already marketed drugs. The two SME (small/medium enterprise) partners BioVersys AG (Basel, Switzerland) and SARomics Biostructures AB (Lund, Sweden) will combine their highly complementary technology modules, expertise and resources to drive the drug development process of initial hit molecules towards fully characterized lead molecules that qualify for preclinical testing. Part of the project will be financed by a Eurostars grant.
“It is a great pleasure to see the synergies between our two companies bearing fruit in an international collaboration with the support and funding of EUROSTARS.” explained Marcel Tigges, CSO at BioVersys.
“We are excited to collaborate with BioVersys on this potentially game-changing approach that addresses a high unmet medical need.” says Dr. Björn Walse, CEO at SARomics Biostructures.
BioVersys AG is a privately held biopharmaceuticals company. It is a spin-off company from the ETH Zurich located in Basel. The company focuses on the research and development of new drugs and compounds that switch off drug resistance within bacterial pathogens and thus restore the efficacy of existing antibiotics. The Team and the technology of BioVersys have already received multiple awards, such as Venture Kick, the Heuberger Winterthur Jungunternehmerpreis 2009, the Swiss TB Award, the Life Sciences Prize 2011, the Swiss Technology Award 2011 and the Jungunternehmerpreis Nordwestschweiz 2012. (www.bioversys.com)
SARomics Biostructures AB is a technology driven research company located in the Medicon Valley region of southern Sweden. SARomics advanced structural biology platform and expertise in structure-based drug design is applied to a number of innovative early stage drug discovery projects as well as in fee for service projects for clients. The company’s extensive portfolio of FastLaneTM off-the-shelf protein structures enables faster project execution substantially accelerating the drug discovery process. The above project is the third consecutive EU financed project awarded to SARomics. The other two, TAKTIC and KINOMED are kinase drug discovery projects for oncology indications. For further information please visit www.saromics.com.
About EUROSTARS
Eurostars is a program that supports research-performing small and medium enterprises, which develop innovative products, processes and services, to gain competitive advantage. Eurostars does this by providing funding for transnational innovation projects where projects have partners from two or more Eurostars countries. The Eurostars programme is publically financed with a total budget of 1.14 billion euro and is currently supported by 33 EUREKA countries and the European Union. http://www.eurostars-eureka.eu/home/what
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