IP-K signs agreement to continue NITD research deal for new drug candidates

Program to discover new drugs will continue through 2012

Institut Pasteur Korea (IP-K) has signed an agreements to continue to mine the chemical compound collection of Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD) of Singapore for new drug candidates.

IP-K's PhenomicScreen- is a high-throughput, high-content visual screening platform that is ideally suited to identifying lead compounds. Over the past year, PhenomicScreen- has been used to search for promising drugs within NITD's chemical compound collection. That deal has now been extended by two years to allow a further exploration of their chemical library.

Dr. Pablo Bifani, Project Team Head at NITD, welcomed his institute's new contract, noting that "The scientific approach we are taking with IP-K is greatly facilitating the selection of candidate compounds for further drug development."

IP-K's Dr. Jonathan Cechetto describes the advantages of PhenomicScreen- as being that "The process selects novel targets, and only those which are functionally significant in the disease process". Dr. Priscille Brodin of IP-K adds that "The phenotypic approach does not rely on a predefined target, but rather simultaneously selects both chemical compounds and an unknown cellular target solely by the clearly discernible effect on the disease model".

Center Director of Core Technologies of Institut Pasteur Korea Dr. Veronica Soloveva said that "We are proud to be working with NITD in the fight against infectious diseases". Soloveva is satisfied that the agreement is a vindication of the institute's innovative approach to drug discovery. "Our PhenomicScreen- technology is proven to increase the accuracy and speed of drug discovery," she says.