Almac Discovery is part of The Almac Group, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) providing a range of services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
The company focuses on the drug discovery to preclinical stage and licenses its program to pharmaceutical companies for further development.
“It is important for the pharmaceutical companies to be confident that the potential drugs are protected from competition particularly due to the long development time for drugs,” Martin Wiles, VP business development and licensing at the company told us.
“A patent is therefore very valuable as it allows for a company to have a 20 year monopoly for a particular drug. It is a key thing that pharmaceutical companies look for when they in-license a program from Almac Discovery.”
According to Wiles, the patent allowance adds to other countries where the drug compounds have already been granted patents, “but is particularly important as the USA is the largest pharmaceutical market in the world,” he said.
The Wee-1 kinase program
Wiles explained the Wee-1 kinase program is at an early stage, but has already identified highly potent and selective inhibitors of Wee-1 kinase, which is important in the regulation of the cell cycle.
“As cell division is particularly important in tumor growth compounds that can regulate the cell cycle are of great interest as potential therapeutics in cancer,” explained Wiles.