Press release - No. 8/2017
Zealand Pharma and Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies announce research collaboration
- Combining expertise in discovery and development of peptide therapeutics with unique peptide libraries to identify novel peptide drug candidates
- In line with Zealand’s strategy to access cutting-edge technology in the development of specialty medicines to treat gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases
Copenhagen, Denmark, and Florida, U.S., October 4, 2017 - Zealand Pharma A/S (“Zealand”) and Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies (TPIMS) announce that they have entered into a multi-target research collaboration to identify novel peptide therapeutics using TPIMS’s proprietary peptide libraries. Through this partnership, TPIMS will provide Zealand with chemical compounds for screening within Zealand research programs. TPIMS’s technologies enable the screening of millions of compounds while testing only hundreds of samples to identify hits, greatly reducing the time and expense involved in initiating research programs with the aim of developing new treatment options for patients.
Andrew Parker, Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer of Zealand, comments: “We are delighted to be working with the TPIMS team, which has a great history of innovation in developing huge peptide libraries that can be screened in a quick and efficient format. Screening TPIMS’s peptide libraries will provide an additional option for Zealand to identify novel peptides so we can develop more effective treatment options for patients suffering from gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases where there are not sufficient treatments today.”
Dr Richard Houghten, Founder and CEO of TPIMS, states: “It is exciting to partner with Zealand, a company with a record of developing novel peptide-based product candidates. TPIMS possesses trillions of peptides systematically arranged for high-throughput screening in a variety of biological assay formats, including phenotypic assays.”
For further information, please contact:
Britt Meelby Jensen, President and CEO
Tel.: +45 51 67 61 28, e-mail: bmj@zealandpharma.com
Mats Blom, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Tel.: +45 31 53 79 73, e-mail: mabl@zealandpharma.com
About Zealand Pharma A/S
Zealand Pharma A/S (Nasdaq Copenhagen and New York: ZEAL) (“Zealand”) is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery, design and development of innovative peptide-based medicines. Zealand has a portfolio of medicines and product candidates under license collaborations with Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim as well as a pipeline of internal product candidates focusing on specialty gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases.
Zealand’s first invented medicine, lixisenatide, a once-daily prandial GLP-1 receptor agonist for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, is licensed to Sanofi. Lixisenatide is marketed as Adlyxin® in the U.S. and as Lyxumia® in the rest of the world. Lixisenatide has been developed in a combination with basal insulin glargine (Lantus®) and is marketed as Soliqua® 100/33 in the U.S. and has been approved as Suliqua® in Europe and launched in the Netherlands.
Zealand’s clinical pipeline includes: dasiglucagon (single-dose rescue treatment) for acute, severe hypoglycemia (Phase 3); glepaglutide for short bowel syndrome (Phase 2 completed); dasiglucagonmultiple-dose version) intended for use in a dual-hormone artificial pancreas system to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia and provide better diabetes management (Phase 2) as well as for the treatment of congenital hyperinsulinism; and other earlier-stage clinical and preclinical peptide therapeutics.
Zealand is based in Copenhagen (Glostrup), Denmark. For further information about the Company’s business and activities, please visit www.zealandpharma.com or follow Zealand on Twitter @ZealandPharma or LinkedIn.
* Dasiglucagon and glepaglutide are proposed International Nonproprietary Names (pINN).
About TPIMS
Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies (TPIMS) is a non-profit institute dedicated to conducting basic research to advance the understanding of human disease and the improvement of human health.
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