ITI Life Sciences Generates First Commercial Licence
CXR Biosciences and Artemis Pharmaceuticals granted licence to exploit novel transgenic models in drug discovery and development
ITI Life Sciences announced that it has reached its first commercial milestone with the grant of a licence to CXR Biosciences and Artemis Pharmaceuticals to use new technology generated in its R&D programme developing new predictive transgenic models for drug discovery and development.
The three-year £5.5m programme involving CXR Biosciences and Artemis Pharmaceuticals, which commenced in February 2005, is designed to develop novel preclinical screening and safety testing models - transgenic humanised mice. These mouse models shall be used by the pharmaceutical industry to predict, earlier and more accurately, the effects that drug compounds and their metabolites will have in humans before the start of human clinical trials. This stage of the drug development process is a crucial industry bottleneck.
The licensed models shall display certain key aspects of human drug metabolism and thus allow highly relevant and predictive studies on drug transport, metabolism (ADMET) and gene regulation to be carried out in vivo and allow the tissue specificity of any beneficial or toxic effects of a chemical to be evaluated. Importantly, these models shall eliminate some of the species differences that result in variable drug effects between mice and humans.
As a result of this R&D programme, the first of a series of new models has been developed and a licence covering Europe and Japan has been granted to each of CXR Biosciences and Artemis. The model is expected to be sold by the two companies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. ITI Life Sciences will receive royalties on sales of the model, which will be re-invested in this and other programmes. Financial terms were not disclosed by the parties.
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