Atheris Laboratories and Debiopharm have announced the signature of a collaboration agreement regarding the Atheris 'Reverse-Discovery' lead optimization platform.
Collaboration with Atheris is expected to accelerate Debiopharm's ongoing lead optimization program in project Debio 0826, whose aim is to develop a peptide drug against an innovative oncology target through a "Venomics" approach using Debiopharm's expertise in the discovery, development and formulation of peptides.
Venoms represent a well-established resource of bioactive compounds that have already led to seven marketed drugs.
This collaboration aims to improve drugability features (increasing efficacy, potency, selectivity and stability, while reducing possibly unwanted side-effects such as toxicity) of one promising lead candidate peptide identified in animal venom by Atheris, Debiopharm and the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Lead optimization will be carried out using Atheris' proprietary "Reverse-Discovery" probabilistic algorithms.
Candidates will be identified and produced using a multiplex synthetic venom platform developed by Atheris in partnership with the teams of Prof. Oliver Hartley at the University of Geneva and Dr Frédérique Lisacek from the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics with financial support from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation.
Atheris Laboratories president and CEO Reto Stocklin said Atheris has demonstrated its commitment with pharma and biotech companies to help accelerate drug discovery with cutting-edge venomics technology.
"The company is particularly proud of this partnership with Debiopharm that consolidates the companies leadership and reinforces our "Reverse-Discovery" platform for lead optimization," Stocklin added.
Debiopharm chief scientific officer, Research & Evaluation Andres McAllister said this new partnership is in line with the collaboration that Debiopharm and Atheris started in 2010.
"Both companies have brought their unique expertise in the field of peptide-based drugs, and contributed to the advancement of project Debio 0826 from hits finding to lead optimization," McAllister added.