Genome Therapeutics and MerLion Pharmaceuticals establish drug discovery collaboration
US company Genome Therapeutics and Singapore-based MerLion Pharmaceuticals have launched a drug discovery programme aimed at identifying natural products with potential use as anti-infective drugs.
US company Genome Therapeutics and Singapore-based MerLion Pharmaceuticals have launched a drug discovery programme aimed at identifying natural products with potential use as anti-infective drugs.
The collaboration will focus on leveraging Genome Therapeutics' validated antibacterial drug targets against MerLion Pharma's extensive natural product libraries to select compounds for future clinical development, including those appropriate for Investigational New Drug (IND) status.
MerLion Pharma, which was established through the privatisation of the former Centre for Natural Product Research (a unit of Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology), possesses one of the world's largest and most diverse natural product libraries available for screening. Genome Therapeutics has built an extensive target protein portfolio by leveraging its genomics expertise to identify genes essential for the growth of bacteria, fungi and other medically important pathogens.
The two companies will share all costs and expenses of the early-stage drug discovery research. Genome Therapeutics will provide MerLion Pharma with screening assays on target proteins essential for the survival of many common pathogens. MerLion Pharma will screen the targets against its vast natural product libraries to isolate and identify novel chemical entities with an inhibitory effect on the target proteins. Genome Therapeutics will profile active compounds for their in vitro and in vivo antibacterial properties to identify novel antibacterial lead series. Both companies retain rights for lead optimisation, clinical development and commercialisation of lead candidates identified during the collaboration.
'Having access to MerLion Pharma's natural product libraries is a critical asset for expanding our broad-spectrum anti-infective drug development programme, as we seek to increase the number of IND candidates in our pipeline,' said Dr Richard Labaudiniere, senior vp, research and development at Genome Therapeutics.