MerLion September 2009
MerLion Pharmaceuticals Pte Ltd Announces Antibacterial Screening Agreement with the Experimental Therapeutics Centre of SingaporeMerLion Pharmaceuticals Pte Ltd (MerLion) today announced a one year agreement to provide high throughput screening and chemistry services to the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC), Singapore. Under the agreement, ETC will provide new antisense based assay technology for MerLion to screen its diverse natural product sample collection and apply its chemistry expertise to the isolation of new antibacterial lead compounds. ETC will undertake pre-clinical development of the discoveries. “The alarming spread of drug resistant bacteria emphasises the need for new antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action. The Experimental Therapeutics Centre has identified a novel target for antibacterial therapy and this offers a unique opportunity to discover new antibiotics from MerLion’s extensive natural products collection.” said Tony Buss, PhD, CEO of MerLion. “We are very pleased to be working with ETC and to strengthen our existing relationships with A*STAR research institutes in Singapore.” Said Dr Alex Matter, CEO of ETC, “Early stage drug discovery and development is a key focus for ETC. This synergistic partnership with MerLion allows us to tackle the challenging task of drug discovery and also demonstrates the rich collaborative links between the public and private sectors in Singapore. The resulting efforts from this partnership will add value to the whole drug discovery value chain and take it a step closer to the clinic.” The Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC) was established in March 2007. Its core mission is mining the gap between the areas of basic and applied biomedical research. They have 3 goals: • Maximizing the potential for new discoveries and technologies for human health |
