Morphochem and Xenogen
collaborate to develop novel drug candidates against bacterial biofilms
Munich,
Germany, and Alameda, USA, 27 March 2003…
Morphochem AG and Xenogen Corp. today announced that both companies have
entered into a research collaboration to discover targets and develop
compounds effective against bacterial biofilms.
Biofilms
occur when bacteria, or other microorganisms, attach themselves to a
surface as a colony, rather than continue to grow in a free-floating
state. Biofilms are responsible for diseases such as otitis media, the
most common acute ear infection in children, play a role in bacterial
endocarditis, urinary tract infections and Legionnaire's disease, and may
be responsible for a wide variety of infections stemming from the surfaces
of catheters, medical implants and other types of medical devices.
Biofilms are highly resistant to antibiotics and therefore new types of
therapeutic compounds to combat their effects constitute a significant
medical need.
Under the
multi-year program, Xenogen will apply its cutting-edge real-time in
vivo bioluminescent imaging technology platform, including Bioware™ cells
and microorganisms and the IVIS™ Imaging System™ to develop in
vitro and in vivo assays to
discover gene targets specifically directed against the formation and
maintenance of biofilms. Morphochem will apply its evolutionary drug
discovery approach using multi-component reaction (MCR) chemistry and its
proprietary software - MolMind™ - to identify structurally novel
compound classes as drug candidates for those targets.
Financial
terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Both companies will retain an ownership interest in compounds
developed under the collaboration. Terms
for commercialization of any resulting compounds are already defined in
the written agreement between the companies but were not disclosed.
“The
ability to use Xenogen’s bioluminescent imaging technologies for drug
discovery will accelerate our ability to screen for effective and safe
compounds in this critical area of infectious disease research.
We are very excited about this opportunity to incorporate
biophotonics with our chemical genomics approach and develop more complete
biological knowledge in screening against biofilm targets," said Dr
Wolfgang Keck, Morphochem’s Vice President, Anti-infectives.
Commented
Dr Pamela Contag, President and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Xenogen,
“Morphochem is an excellent partner for identifying new small molecules
directed towards biofilm targets. By
combining our respective technologies, we think this collaboration will
maximize the synergies between our biological and chemical areas of
expertise and therefore the effectiveness and efficiency of the drug
discovery process.”
-ends-
Notes
Xenogen
Corporation (www.xenogen.com) is a leader in the field of real-time in
vivo imaging, providing the pharmaceutical and biotechnology
industries with proprietary technologies, products and services to enable
real-time in vivo monitoring to identify drug leads for clinical
development. In addition to
real-time in vivo imaging, Xenogen Biosciences, a subsidiary of
Xenogen Corporation, provides comprehensive transgenic services for the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries – from transgene
microinjection and gene-targeting programs to long-term collaborative
arrangements for developing and phenotyping animal models. Xenogen is also
expanding its technology into broad applications for other fields,
including biomedical research and toxicology testing in the chemical
industry. Xenogen is
headquartered in Alameda, California, USA.
