GVK Bio, Temple University in drug discovery tie-up

GVK Biosciences has struck a multi-year drug discovery collaboration with the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, Temple University, Philadelphia, US.

The Moulder Center is focussed on drug discovery in the area of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. It works with industry and other universities in joint research projects.

In recent years, with new drug discovery and bringing to market becoming prohibitively expensive and success rates falling, large pharma companies, which had invested heavily earlier have started looking at Universities and academia for basic discovery research.

Keeping this trend in mind, GVK Biosciences, a contract research organisation has forged a partnership with the Temple University. The first priority will be to identify potential molecules that can be taken to the clinical stage. The target area will be cardio metabolic diseases, Dr J.B. Singh, Senior Vice-President (Collaborative Research), told Business Line .

Nearly 75 per cent of the collaborative work will be done at the facilities of GVK Biosciences near Hyderabad. This includes target validation, lead identification and lead optimisation of small molecules. “We have a dedicated group with integrated drug discovery expertise (including chemistry and biology) and technologies to identify interesting small molecules against selected targets”, he said.

This collaboration with Temple University is among several academic collaborations GVK Bio has with leading research institutions, Mr Manni Kantipudi, Chief Executive Officer said. The outcome of the research will be commercially exploitable and GVK Bio will be inventor on the patents.

Dr Magid Abou-Gharbia, Director of the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research and Associate Dean for Research in Temple's School of Pharmacy said working with GVK Bio we can further leverage both teams' talents to identify innovative drug candidates.

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