Under the new agreement AMRI will screen Oban, Scotland-headquartered Aquapharm’s library of marine microorganism derived compounds for activity against a range of medically-important bacteria.
AMRI will also test the library against an inflammatory disease target selected by Aquapharm, although details of this part of the project have not been made public. Screen is expected to be completed sometime next year.
Aquapharm CEO Simon Best told Outsourcing-pharma that AMRI’s work will provide the firm with additional information about what is a unique library of the compounds.
Professor Best added that: “Many of these compounds are expected to show potential as new drugs to treat diseases for which current solutions are either losing their effectiveness or for which there are not yet sufficient cost-effective treatments.
“This opens up a major new market for the company although some of the individual compounds may also turn out to be useful products for our Personal Care and Food - Beverage partners as well,” he continued, citing Croda as a firm Aquapharm is already working with.
AMRI discovery biz
AMRI VP of discovery research and development, Bruce Sargent, described the project as “an exciting opportunity” citing the firm’s track record of identifying lead compounds that show activity against MRSA and E.coli.
Preclinical discovery services are a growing part of AMRI’s business. The Aquapharm deal is, for example, the third signed since April when the US services firm landed a contract with Navigen and extended its deal with CHDI.
And, before these agreements, the importance of this part of AMRI’s offering was highlighted by its first-quarter results, which saw discovery revenues climb 7 per cent on the comparable period in 2009 to $12.3m (€9.7m).