Nuevolution, Johnson & Johnson begin discovery collaboration
pharmafile | October 19, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | Chemetics, Janssen Biotech, Nuevolution
Nuevolution and Janssen Biotech have entered into a collaboration which will use Nuevolution’s Chemetics drug discovery platform to facilitate discovery and development of new treatments for the treatment of oncological, infectious and inflammatory diseases.
Within the framework of the collaboration, privately held Copenhagen-based biotechnology company Nuevolution will apply its drug discovery platform Chemetics to discover and advance drug candidates against drug targets of interest to Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of J&J.
Nuevolution’s Chemetics technology combines high throughput screening and fragment-based screening to sample millions to billions of fragments, some of which have already been evolved synthetically by use of organic synthesis.
The company claims that more than 100 million molecules may be screened by one person against a given target in two to three days, using only micrograms of target material and nanograms of library material.
During the screening process, the target of interest is exposed to a mixture of 100 million molecules. From this mixture, the target will select those molecules with the appropriate ligand characteristics.
Nuevolution will receive an upfront payment and research funding and would be eligible to receive milestone payments upon achievement of specified research, development and commercial milestones. In addition, Nuevolution would be entitled to royalty payments on net-sale of products that may be commercialised as a result of the collaboration.
Alex Gouliaev, chief executive of Nuevolution, says: “We are excited about entering into the extensive collaboration with Janssen. We are looking forward to an excellent working relationship with their dedicated research and development teams.”
Janssen is not the first company to take an interest in Nuevolution’s Chemetics platform. Novartis has twice collaborated with the company-once in 2009 and again last year- using the DNA labelling system, which optimises the potential for identifying leads.
Yasmita Kumar
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