Denmark-headquartered BioLigands’ founding shareholders have teamed up with Phase IIa focused UK drug developer Bridge BioResearch to buy equity previously held by investment group Southern Danish Innovation.
Bridge BioResearch (BBR) CEO Soren Stenderup told Outsourcing-pharma.com: “Southern Danish Innovation held 50 per cent of BioLigands’ shares, which is what the founding shareholders and BBR have acquired.”
Stenderup described BioLigands as a sound financial investment that will add “lead identification and optimizations skills” to Bridges’ capabilities.
“BioLigands primarily identifies and optimizes leads and has no involvement in preclinical trials,” he explained, adding that “preclinical services in our terminology are the activities done to GCP standards and laid out in the ICH guidelines which typically will result in the dossier supporting a Phase I trial application.”
The two firms are also both members of the Eurostars consortium– a European programme designed to support SMEs R&D efforts develop new products, processes and services.