Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Yale University expand agreement to explore new ribosome technology

Dec 8 2009

Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs for the treatment of serious multi-drug-resistant infections, announced today it has entered into a further license agreement with Yale University in the area of ribosome and antibiotic structure and function. Under the agreement, Rib-X will further explore the high resolution crystal structure of new ribosome technology elucidated by Dr. Thomas Steitz and colleagues at Yale.

Dr. Steitz, who was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2009 by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is also a Rib-X Co-Founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Company.

"This high resolution structure will become an important additional tool in the discovery of new antibiotic agents," said Susan Froshauer, Ph.D., Rib-X's President and CEO. "This further license is a natural extension of our relationship with Yale, and builds upon Dr. Steitz's Nobel Prize winning work and, in turn, will increase our understanding, on an atomic level, of the binding properties of antibiotics to the ribosome."