Friday December 05 2008 | Biotechnology feed | All feeds
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Friday December 05 2008 | Biotechnology feed | All feeds
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| Prolysis Company ProfileOxford, July 12 2004 Prolysis Limited is an R&D company focused on the creation of medicines to address the spreading crisis of antibiotic resistance. The Company is exploiting unique insights into bacterial cell biology to create the new broad-spectrum antibiotics that are urgently needed to treat resistant hospital and community-acquired infections.Prolysis
has an internal expertise in bacterial cell biology and combines this with
structural biology and medicinal chemistry from technology partners to create a
multi-project preclinical portfolio. Prolysis will commercialise its new
antibiotics by out-licensing after demonstrating proof-of-concept in human Phase
IIa studies. Need
for New Antibiotics Antibiotic-resistant
bacteria are a major threat. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have
estimated that each year in the USA 2 million patients acquire an infection in
hospital resulting in 90,000 deaths. In the UK the corresponding figures are
100,000 patient infections and 5,000 deaths. There is therefore huge unmet
clinical need for new classes of antibiotics that can attack bacteria in
different ways from current medicines and therefore get round the defenses of
resistant bacteria. However, in the last 20 years, only one major new class of
antibiotic has been developed to meet this challenge. Prolysis is discovering
and developing novel antibiotic drugs with the qualities to treat these drug
resistant infections. Scientific
Overview Prolysis
novel bacterial cell biology technology is founded on the pioneering work of
Professor Jeff Errington FRS from the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at
the University of Oxford. Based on this work, the Prolysis team has established
five proprietary whole cell assays that target critical pathways ensuring that
potential therapeutics can enter the bacterial cell. Prolysis uses its
proprietary high-throughput "dual-reporter" assay system complemented
by state-of-the-art fluorescent microscopy for an information-rich understanding
of target hits. Prolysis
has developed the proprietary founding technology into a robust antibiotic
discovery engine with the following unique benefits:
Active compounds enter bacterial cells
The in vivo assays use the bacterial cell to provide reagents and assay readout
The assays detect inhibition of specific enzymes or complex pathways
Sensitive assays detect active compounds traditional processes miss
State of the art microscopy confirms compound mechanism of action Portfolio
strategy Prolysis'
strategy is to build a multi-project portfolio based on:
Screening its compound library using its proprietary technology
Identification of new antibiotic targets and screening assays
Complementing founding technology with partnered structural-biology and
computational chemistry to create structure-driven drug discovery projects
Licensing complementary R&D programmes Business
Model The
Company will progress its novel antibiotic programmes up to clinical proof of
concept and will then license to commercialisation partners. The Company will
expand its R&D portfolio through collaborations and licensing. Investors Prolysis
is currently embarking on a venture round to assist the Company move its
programs towards clinical development. The Company has raised ca. £5.5m in
venture funding since 2001 to create its drug discovery organisation with proven
proprietary technology and a multi-project portfolio. The previous funding round
of November 2002 was led by East Hill Management Company, Boston, USA.
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