Harlow, UK and Labège, France – Argenta, a Galapagos NV (Euronext: GLPG) company that provides drug discovery services from target validation to proof of concept, announced today that it has signed a collaboration agreement with Antabio. Under the terms of the agreement, Argenta will provide medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug design and ADME/PK services, together with its integrated drug discovery expertise, to assist Antabio in the identification of novel anti-bacterial agents and discovery of a development candidate that can be progressed into clinical trials. The collaboration is funded by a Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery award.
Between 5 and 10% of hospital patients in the US and Europe develop hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections. The consequences are up to 75,000 deaths per year, 2.5 million additional hospital days due to drug-resistant bacterial infections and an average additional cost of 1.5 billion euros for healthcare systems. In 2004, the World Health Organization identified infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria as the number one disease requiring priority medicines.
Antabio’s first-in-class, small molecule compounds offer a synergistic solution to the shortfall of current antibacterial agents. In particular, Antabio is developing new drugs that will work with existing antibiotics to enable them to regain their activity against multi- or pan-drug resistant Gram-negative pathogens such as NDM-1 bacteria. Antabio’s compounds will also prevent infections caused by virulent and multi-drug resistant bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) that are responsible for severe nosocomial-acquired infections as well as other common community-acquired conditions like urinary tract infections and food poisoning.
Dr John Montana, Managing Director of Argenta, commented, “Argenta is proud to announce this agreement with Antabio, which is the second SDDI-funded collaboration to be disclosed by Argenta in recent months. There is an urgent need for new anti-bacterial drugs and we look forward to working with Antabio to progress their compounds rapidly towards pre-clinical candidate nomination”.
“We are very excited to collaborate with Argenta on this SDDI-funded programme” said Dr Marc Lemonnier, CEO of Antabio. “Assembling an expert and complementary drug discovery team is critical when it comes to advancing novel drugs that are so badly needed by patients suffering from life-threatening infections. This joint effort nicely exemplifies our vision of high-value partnering as a key element to deliver tomorrow’s antibacterial agents”.
About Antabio
Antabio is a private biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibacterial resistance-breakers to treat drug-resistant infections in areas of highest unmet medical need. Two of Antabio’s programs have received Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery Awards to date: [i] a novel, safe and efficacious inhibitor of bacterial metallo ß-lactamases to be combined with a carbapenem for the treatment of drug-resistant nosocomial infections and [ii] a first-in-class inhibitor of Pseudomonas virulence to be co-administered with standard-of-care antibiotics for the long-term management of chronic respiratory infections. The company’s lead product is expected to enter the clinic in 2019 with a fast track to anticipated marketing approval by 2021. Antabio has built a best in class, international team of experts in the field and is currently seeking to raise additional funds to progress its pipeline up to the next value inflection point. The Company is also looking to in-license additional assets focused on Gram-negative antibiotic resistant therapies. Please visit www.antabio.com and follow us on Twitter @antabio
About Argenta
Argenta is a fully-integrated drug discovery services provider and a trusted partner for many world-leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including AstraZeneca, Genentech, Janssen and Zafgen.
Argenta combines a comprehensive range of discovery services with multiple disease area expertise including respiratory, oncology, pain and inflammatory disease, providing a compelling combination of scientific excellence, a full in vitro and in vivo pharmacology and DMPK capability, cutting edge medicinal chemistry thinking and cost-effectiveness.
Argenta provides fully-integrated and stand-alone services from target validation through to Development Candidate nomination and have built an Industry-leading track record of delivering development compounds, averaging over three development compounds per year.
Founded in 2000, Argenta currently employs over 145 scientists in the UK with an average of 17 years’ pharmaceutical drug discovery expertise. Argenta has delivered 40 development candidates in 12 years, and greater than 85% of the Company’s contract research is repeat business. More information at: www.argentadiscovery.com.
About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. www.wellcome.ac.uk