Santhera Announces Management Buy-Out of the Graffinity Drug Discovery Technology Business

04-Jan-2006

Santhera Pharmaceuticals AG announced the completion of the management buyout of its Graffinity technology business unit which was part of Santhera's German subsidiary, Santhera Pharmaceuticals (Germany) AG. As of January 1st 2006, Graffinity will operate as an independent company which offers drug discovery services and collaborations based on its proprietary small molecule fragment-based screening technology - RAISE(tm) (Rapid Affinity Instructed Structural Evolution).

As part of the agreement, Santhera will retain access to Graffinity's technology to broaden and develop its pre-clinical pipeline. Santhera also retains a profit interest in the new business whereby it will receive certain revenues from Graffinity. No further financial terms were disclosed.

Graffinity will be led by Dr. Kristina Schmidt, who most recently held the position of General Manager and Executive Board Member of Santhera's German subsidiary. Dr. Schmidt co-invented the RAISE(tm) technology and co-founded the original Graffinity Pharmaceuticals AG in 1997 which merged with MyoContract Ltd. of Liestal, Switzerland in 2004 to form Santhera Pharmaceuticals AG, headquartered in Liestal, Switzerland.

Since 2002 the RAISE(tm) technology has been successfully applied to more than 40 drug targets provided by leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agrochemical companies. The first small molecule drugs that were discovered by Graffinity have already advanced into pre-clinical development. Graffinity's partners include among others Amgen, BASF, Genentech, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, and Serono. Graffinity will be based in Heidelberg, Germany.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/51188/santhera-announces-management-buy-out-of-the-graffinity-drug-discovery-technology-business.html