Dortmund, Germany, January 20, 2010 – InterMed Discovery (IMD), a world class natural product lead-discovery company, today announced that it has received an award from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research for its programme to develop IMD-026259 as a pharmaceutical treatment to challenge neuro-degeneration in Parkinson’s disease (PD).
PD is a disease of progressive neuro-degeneration where the cells of particular brain regions involved in the production of dopamine die progressively in a process involving “oxidative stress”. The oxidative stress seen in PD is caused by dysfunctional mitochondria activating the downstream signal protein HIF-1. Therefore negative regulation of the HIF-1 signal is thought to be a valid therapeutic strategy towards reduction of neurotoxicity mediated by oxidative stress and subsequent neuro-inflammation. IMD’s naturally based product candidate IMD-026259 inhibits HIF-1 and has already demonstrated potent neuro-protective capabilities in several biological models including PD.
“Due to its innovative point of intervention, we consider IMD-026259 to be a novel disease-modifying therapeutic approach to oxidative stress related, neuro-inflammatory diseases such as PD,” said Philipp Wabnitz, Head Pharmacology at InterMed Discovery.
“These funds will enable us to further substantiate preclinical proof of principle towards development of this promising product candidate,“ said Dr. Thomas Henkel, co-Managing Director of InterMed Discovery.
“The award is also a validation of the quality and our previous investments in this project,” added Bernard Becker, co-Managing Director of InterMed Discovery.
About InterMed Discovery
InterMed Discovery is an emerging world class natural product lead-discovery company, driving innovation through the generation of novel product candidates for the life science, food and cosmetics industries. Using one of the most powerful validated natural product discovery engines, InterMed Discovery generates proprietary product pipelines of early stage pharmaceuticals and functional ingredients and also supports partners in research and lead generation. Biologically characterised product leads are identified using IMD BIOPROFILING® and NPSilico®, which together comprise a proprietary bioinformatics platform drawing on screening results compiled over many years, complemented by primary biological and chemical research on natural products. InterMed Discovery adds to this the industry’s largest collections of pure compounds, sample fractions and mixtures as its source for potential natural product leads. The Company is located in Dortmund, Germany and was founded in 2006 as a management buyout of the Natural Products Research Unit of Bayer Healthcare. IMD entered into strategic cooperations with companies such as Cognis GmbH and Biotropics Malaysia Berhad. Further information on InterMed Discovery can be found at www.intermed-discovery.com
About The Michael J. Fox Foundation
The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to ensuring the development of better treatments, and ultimately a cure, for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda. MJFF has funded nearly $170 million in research to date. For more information please visit www.michaeljfox.org
