BWI: Advinus Therapeutics and Celgene Global Health Initiate Research and Development Collaboration for Visceral Leishmaniasis (Kala Azar)

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Advinus Therapeutics
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 12:24 PM IST (06:54 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest, People; Business: Business services, Healthcare, biotechnology & pharmaceutical, Information technology, Major diversified industrial groups, Retailers; Technology; Healthcare
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Advinus Therapeutics and Celgene Global Health Initiate Research and Development Collaboration for Visceral Leishmaniasis (Kala Azar)


Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Tuesday, February 07, 2012 -- (Business Wire India) -- Advinus Therapeutics Ltd., an emerging drug discovery and development company which caters to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries, announced today the initiation of a discovery and development collaboration with Celgene Global Health (CGH).

The collaboration, which has been agreed upon for an initial term of 18 months, will focus on therapies for Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), the second-largest parasitic killer in the world with an estimated 500,000 cases each year. Recent estimates show that more than 90% of cases occur in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Brazil and Sudan. The collaboration has been formed to specifically address unmet patient needs as current treatments have significant drawbacks, including route of administration, length of treatment (21 to 28 days), and emerging parasitic resistance.

The partnership reaffirms the commitment of Advinus and CGH for developing drugs to treat neglected diseases. This new collaboration highlights the relative experience and expertise of both companies in analytical chemistry, discovery biology, screening and pre-formulation. The goal of the project is to identify and develop compounds that are safe and effective against VL parasites.

"This collaboration leverages a wealth of early discovery research breakthroughs from Celgene and Advinus' capabilities to translate such breakthroughs into drug candidates with speed and cost-effectiveness", said Dr. Rashmi Barbhaiya, CEO and MD of Advinus. "Such collaborative models are needed to fulfill unmet medical needs for neglected diseases and it can also provide guidance for a new paradigm of developing medicines for global needs with effective resource utilization, speed and cost-effectiveness."

"VL is a true unmet medical need," said Jerome B. Zeldis MD, PhD, and CEO of Celgene Global Health. "We look forward to working with Advinus to derive VL drugs using the vast chemical library of Celgene as a starting point for development."

About Celgene Global Health

CGH is committed to improving the lives of people in low economic settings. CGH, a division of Celgene Corporation, was founded in 2009 to focus on building collaborations with non-governmental organizations such as, Product Development Partnerships, academic institutions, public/private funding organizations, clinical research organizations and other pharmaceutical organizations to evaluate our deep and diverse library and pipeline of more than 400,000 compounds for activity in neglected diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis and more. CGH is advancing partnerships with local medical experts and health systems in the developing world to identify best practices for expanding access to safe and effective medicines.

About Advinus

Advinus Therapeutics is an emerging drug discovery and development company catering to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. The company has been promoted by the TATA group, India's largest and most respected business house and led by executives with extensive international experience in pharmaceutical R&D. Advinus is the first of its kind in India to offer end to end pre-clinical and early clinical development services to the global pharmaceutical and biotech industry while creating long term value through internal and collaborative drug discovery. The Discovery unit located in Pune is fully integrated from hit to preclinical candidate. Advinus Development in Bangalore offers an integrated service platform for process chemistry, DMPK, clinical pharmacology, safety assessment, analytical R&D, bioanalytical and formulation development. For company information, visit Advinus at www.advinus.com


CONTACT DETAILS
Rajiv Malik,SVP - Operations, Advinus Therapeutics, +91 (080) 28392378, Rajiv.malik@advinus.com
Celgene Global Health, +91 9086732275, media@celgene.com

KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, PEOPLE, BUSINESS SERVICES, HEALTHCARE, IT, GROUPS, RETAIL, TECHNOLOGY, HEALTHCARE

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