Alchemia makes another deal

Demand by drug discovery companies for carbohydrate chemistry specialist Alchemia's library of novel molecules is increasing. An agreement signed with US biotech CelTor BioSystems this week is the second collaborative pact Alchemia has announced in the past three weeks.

The first, in late March, was with Belgian company Euroscreen.

CelTor is a specialist anti-inflammatory drug discovery company targeting G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCR), the cell surface receptors implicated in a multiplicity of diseases. GPCRs represent approximately 30 per cent of all targets being pursued for drug discovery today by research teams around the world.

Alchemia will provide libraries of its custom-tailored molecules for screening against GPCRs by CelTor's proprietary assay systems. Alchemia's technology permits extremely diverse structures to be built on three-dimensional sugar scaffolds. It can decorate these sugar-based backbones with drug-like groups known to exhibit therapeutic activity, especially against GPCRs.

CelTor will screen the library for the presence of small molecules, or ligands, that bind to the active site of a GPCR.

The Euroscreen agreement is based along identical lines. An Alchemia spokesman said there was no conflict between the two arrangements because the proprietary technologies of Euroscreen and CelTor address different sections of the GPRC family.

Although Alchemia is in discussions with other companies holding patents covering parts of the GPCR receptor family, its next collaboration is likely to be with a partner focused on areas outside the GPCR field, the spokesman said. Alchemia's combinatorial chemistry expertise in sugar-based compounds allows it to "readily mimic any current drug," he said.

Financial considerations were not disclosed for either of the two recent agreements. Any drug candidates emerging from the ventures will be either developed in-house or licensed to other parties.

Alchemia’s current revenue stream includes collaborative arrangements with Dow Chemical for large-scale carbohydrate synthesis.