Aurigene forges 2 tie-ups to discover small molecule drugs

Bangalore, Feb 2 (UNI) Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd, a city-based integrated drug discovery services company, today announced collaborations with Forest Laboratories and Merck Serono to discover small molecule drugs.

Speaking to mediapersons about the new collaborations, Aurigene CEO CSN Murthy said that through the collaboration with the US-based Forest Labs, Aurigene would discover drug candidates for novel obesity and metabolic disorders, while the collaboration with Merck would identify small molecule drugs for treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

Aurigene, a fully owned subsidiary of pharma major Reddy Labs, had been a major producer of IPs with ten patents in its kitty in its three years of existence.

''We are rapidly developing our small molecule discovery capabilities through a number of ongoing programmes at various stages of development. Forest has world class development capabilities and marketing expertise and our collaboration can flourish by bringing together the complementary strengths of both organisations,'' Mr Murthy said.

Under the 60 million Dollar agreement, Aurigene would undertake fund discovery and optimisation of lead compounds, with close participation of Forest's scientists.

In his message, Mr Ivan Gergel, President of Forest Research Institute, said ''the discovery of novel drug candidates would have a great impact on discovering unmet medical needs. Our search for capable partners led us to work with Aurigene.'' Under the research agreement with Merck, Aurigene would utilise its integrated infrastructure for drug discovery, starting from protein expression and purification, all the way through medical chemistry and pre-clinical biology and generate an optimised lead ready for IND-enabled studies, Mr Murthy said.

UNI