Biotica alliance with GSK shortlisted for prestigious Scrip Award
Cambridge UK, 11 September 2009
Biotica, the leader in the discovery of polyketide therapeutics, has been shortlisted for the 2009 Scrip Award for Licensing Deal of the Year. In previous years, this award has recognised substantial and important licensing deals: in 2008 BioMS’s licensing of dirucotide to Lilly and in 2007 the deal between Oxford Biomedica and Sanofi-Aventis for Trovax. The shortlist for the Scrip awards is published at www.scripawards.com
The shortlisting is for Biotica’s January 2009 deal with GlaxoSmithKline covering the nPT-ery programme. Under the terms of that deal, Biotica and GSK are working together in a three year collaboration to generate novel erythromycin analogues for use in anti-inflammatory indications. GSK has the right to develop and commercialise the resulting compounds.
The deal takes advantage of Biotica’s ability to generate novel polyketides by bioengineering the natural producer organism. This is an excellent complement for GSK’s expertise in semi-synthetic derivatisation of erythromycin-based compounds. The programme could result in a new class of anti-inflammatory compounds to bring important therapeutics to patients whose needs are currently poorly met.
The winner of the Award will be announced at the Scrip Awards Ceremony on 18 November 2009.
Biotica Technology Ltd
Dr Edward E. Hodgkin, CEO
Tel: +44 1799 532920
About Biotica
Biotica is a privately-held biotechnology company that discovers and develops polyketide therapeutics. It has a growing pipeline of novel therapeutic programmes supported by clinical validation. These include nPT-mTOR (unique mTOR inhibitors partnered with Wyeth), nPT-CLN (potent calcineurin inhibitors for inhaled use in asthma), nPT-CyP (cyclophilin inhibitors for HCV) and nPT-ery (erythromycin analogues partnered with GlaxoSmithKline). All of Biotica’s projects employ its proprietary novoPT™ technology, which enables it to select from the many known polyketides with biological activity and make a range of derivatives that are either difficult or impossible to make by medicinal chemistry methods. For additional information visit www.biotica.com
Posted on 11 September 2009 at 11:25am