PERTH, Australia and LELYSTAD,
The Netherlands, May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Phylogica Ltd (ASX:
PYC, XETRA: PH7), a leading Australian peptide drug discovery
company, and Pepscan Therapeutics, a Dutch biopharmaceutical firm
focusing on protein mimicry technology, today announce that they
have entered a Research Collaboration and Option Agreement to
evaluate the combination of their complementary peptide
technologies for drug discovery. Under the terms of the agreement,
Pepscan using its CLIPS technology will work with Phylogica to
optimise novel therapeutic Phylomer drug candidates against
CD40-ligand for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune
diseases and inflammatory disorders. Phylogica will also have an
option to expand the collaboration to include an undisclosed number
of other disease-associated targets. Financial details were not
disclosed
Phylogica's CEO, Dr Paul Watt,
said: "We are excited to be working with Pepscan, which has
world-class technology for improving the activity and stability of
therapeutic peptides. We strongly believe that the combination of
Pepscan's CLIPS technology with our potent Phylomer peptides will
further enhance our ability to generate breakthrough drug
candidates against difficult-to-treat diseases."
Dr Wim Mol, CEO of Pepscan, said:
"We jointly recognise the perfect match of our combined
technologies - Phylogica providing truly innovative peptide leads,
and Pepscan applying its state-of-the-art CLIPS technology for
peptide lead optimisation. We therefore believe that this agreement
only forms the start of a promising and productive relationship
between our two companies."
About Phylogica
Phylogica Limited (ASX: PYC) is a biotechnology company based in
Perth, Australia, and Oxford, UK, with a world-class drug discovery
platform harnessing the rich biodiversity of nature to discover
novel peptide therapeutics. The Company was incorporated in 2001 as
a spin out from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
(Perth, Australia) and the Fox
Chase Cancer Centre (Philadelphia,
USA). The Company's drug discovery
platform is based on its proprietary Phylomer(R) libraries of
natural peptides, which have been optimised by evolutionary
selection to have stable drug-like structures. Phylogica offers
fully integrated drug discovery services to the pharmaceutical
industry utilising its Phylomer(R) libraries and proprietary
screening technologies. Its current partners include Roche,
MedImmune (the worldwide biologics unit of AstraZeneca) and
Pfizer.
About Phylomer(R) Peptides
Phylomer peptides are derived from biodiverse natural sequences,
which have been selected by evolution to form stable structures,
which can bind tightly, and specifically to disease associated
target proteins, both inside and outside cells. Suitable targets
for blockade by Phylomers include protein interactions that promote
multiple diseases, such as infectious diseases, cancer,
autoimmunity and heart disease. Phylomer peptides can have
drug-like properties, including specificity, potency and thermal
stability, and are capable of being produced by synthetic or
recombinant manufacturing processes. Phylomer peptides are also
readily formulated for administration by a number of means,
including parenteral or intranasal delivery approaches.
About Pepscan
Pepscan Therapeutics is a privately held biopharmaceutical
company based in Lelystad, The
Netherlands. Pepscan is applying its proprietary high
throughput CLIPS protein mimicking technology for the development
of novel constrained therapeutic peptides and immunogens. Besides
its pipeline of therapeutic peptides and anti-GPCR monoclonal
antibody products, Pepscan has various ongoing collaborations with
leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies to develop novel
therapeutics based on the proprietary CLIPS technology
platform.
About CLIPS
CLIPS (Chemical LInkage of Peptides onto Scaffolds) is a
technology to present one or more peptides in a structurally
constrained configuration. These molecules behave as functional
mimics of structurally complex protein domains. CLIPS therapeutic
peptides have been shown to exert improved activity and stability.
CLIPS peptides are also used as superior immunogens for antibody
generation against disease relevant protein targets. This is
especially valuable in the case of proteins that are inaccessible
as recombinant proteins, such as GPCRs.
SOURCE Pepscan Therapeutics
