Tripos and Biovitrum Announce Successful Chemistry Partnership Results And New Informatics Research Collaboration
Partnership Generates Series of Lead Drug Candidates in Less Than Three Months
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ST. LOUIS and STOCKHOLM, Sweden. Tripos, Inc. and the Swedish biotech company Biovitrum announced positive results from the companies' discovery research partnership. In less than three months, Tripos successfully designed and synthesized a lead series for one of Biovitrum's high-priority projects. The companies have also entered into a new collaborative software research program to develop improved tools for drug discovery. Tripos is a leading provider of drug discovery chemistry and informatics products, and Biovitrum is one of Europe's largest biotechnology companies active in the research and development of small molecule drugs and recombinant protein drugs.
The acquisition of new LeadQuest(R) compounds to augment Biovitrum's existing screening library, coupled with the employment of Tripos' proprietary software programs -- ChemSpace(R) and SARNavigator(TM) -- allowed the companies to identify and optimize two promising lead series for follow-up. Of particular note, Tripos was able to optimize on physical properties as well as activity of the compounds, and ultimately synthesize an exclusive library for Biovitrum -- all within 12 weeks.
"We are very pleased with both the scientific quality of our collaboration with Tripos and its responsiveness to our needs," said Charles Hedgcock, director of Medicinal Chemistry at Biovitrum. "We are particularly impressed by Tripos' informatics-driven data analysis and library design capabilities, as well as its ability to develop scientifically innovative software offerings."
The companies will next embark on an informatics technology project to enhance the GASP(TM) software tool, which applies a genetic algorithm to a set of compounds active against a common target. Molecules that match the models created in GASP are more likely to be active, making this an important tool to identify other active structural series in large corporate databases.
"Our combined chemistry and informatics capabilities expedite the drug discovery process, in terms of reducing the time, expense and patent risk involved in developing new drugs," said Dr. Peter Hecht, senior vice president of Discovery Research Operations at Tripos. "We are excited about our future collaboration with Biovitrum as we together seek to improve these critical technologies. This is an excellent example of what we hope to achieve in each of our client partnerships."
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