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Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd on Thursday announced the signing of a joint licensing deal with the UK-based Helperby Therapeutics in what is seen as a breakthrough in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
The deal value was undisclosed but could contribute to Helperby scaling up in the UK to a potential £500-million operation, creating employment for 500-1,000 persons by 2019.
The Ahmedabad-based privately-held Cadila Pharma’s tie-up with Helperby, an antibiotics discovery major, will be on antibiotic drug resistance research and development, according to a company statement here.
Described as the “most important” innovation in the discovery of new antibiotics since Alexander Fleming’s original breakthrough more than 80 years ago, the tie-up would focus on discovery of patented ‘resistance breaker’ compounds, Dr Rajiv I Modi, Chairman and Managing Director, Cadila Pharma, said.
These new compounds, called Antibiotic Resistance Breakers (ARBs), when combined with an old obsolete antibiotic, can rejuvenate it and make it active against highly resistant bacteria, he said, adding this discovery would open new avenues against resistant organisms. The collaboration with Helperby could help mankind win the battle against the microbes and save millions of lives in coming years, he said.
Travelling with British Prime Minister David Cameron’s trade delegation to India, Helperby signed its first major licensing deal with Cadila Pharmaceuticals to take the compound through further clinical trials, approvals and into commercialisation. Helperby will supply Cadila Pharma with ARBs, while the latter will develop combinations with old antibiotics.
Cameron said the deal between Helperby and Cadila Pharma on ARB research would help the two countries succeed in the global race, the statement said.
Helperby, a spin-off of the UK’s University of London St George’s, has been working for the past 12 years on ways to tackle antibiotic resistance and has discovered a new series of potent, fast-acting drugs which rescue old antibiotics. Cadila Pharma will take the new discovery through phase III and into commercialisation.
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