Preclinical services news in brief
research services arena, news has emerged involving Gendata,
Achaogen, NiKem Research and Verona Pharma.
Today Genedata announced the opening of a new Tokyo arm, with business focusing on research areas such as screening analysis and biomarker discovery for toxicogenomics research. The Swiss-based computational biology firm said the new offices, located in Shinagawa district, will "pave the way for a full professional services base in Japan, from which to provide local support for life sciences research with a focus on pharmaceutical research." The company, which also has operations in the US and Europe said this is its first foray into Asia, where there is a growing demand for enterprise-level computational solutions for life sciences and drug discovery research, particularly in Japan. Japan - the world's second largest pharmaceutical market - is finally becoming an important global player in pharmaceutical research and development and over the past few years, major Japanese firms have expanded their research activities in the Asia region and beyond. In contract news, Achaogen has just been awarded a four year $18.8m (€14m) cost-plus-fixed-fee contract by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, beating 50 other hopeful bidders. The San Francisco-based firm will undertake research on novel broad-spectrum therapeutics against undisclosed Gram-negative bacterial threat agents - which are defined by the US Center for Disease Control as agents that could pose a risk to national security because they can be easily disseminated or transmitted from person to person; result in high mortality rates and have the potential for major public health impact; might cause public panic and social disruption; and/or require special action for public health preparedness. Examples of such bacterial pathogens include anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) and botulism (Clostridium botulinum toxin). Achaogen said it will perform the majority (68.5 per cent) of the work in San Francisco, while its Menlo Park unit, also in California, will be used to undertake 15.25 per cent and its other facilities in Detroit, Michigan and Baltimore and Frederick in Maryland will carry out the remainder. In addition, Italian drug discovery service provider NiKem Research announced last week that it has entered a one year research agreement with California-based biotech firm InterMune. Under the deal, for which the financial terms were not disclosed, NiKem will use its medicinal chemistry and early ADMET/PK technology to design, synthesise and profile pharmacologically active compounds aimed at undisclosed pulmonary targets. Commenting on the deal, Pierfausto Seneci, CBO of NiKem, lauded his company's ability to penetrate the US market despite the unfavourable €/$ exchange. Meanwhile, UK's Verona Pharma has signed a deal to begin formal safety evaluation pre-clinical studies of Lab Research's lead compound, RPL554, which is in development for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and hay fever - a market valued at $20m. Following positive safety results, the company will seek to gain approval to begin Phase I and proof-of-concept (POC) Phase IIa studies on the compound.
