Irish/German tie up in fragment-based drug discovery

Partnership

Graffinity Pharmaceuticals GmbH of Heidelberg has entered into a research collaboration with Elan Pharmaceuticals under which it will receive technology access fees and success payments for the generation of novel small-molecule hits against a number of drug targets.

Dublin-based Elan will gain access to Graffinity’s proprietary fragment-based drug discovery technology. This uses chemical microarrays and surface plasmon resonance to screen for small molecule fragments that bind to a variety of drug targets. The identification of novel modes of action and chemistry is a major focus of the collaboration. Financial details were not disclosed.

Mathias Woker, Chief Business Officer of Graffinity, said, “With this transaction we are launching our third drug discovery collaboration with a major life science company within the past nine months. This collaboration marks our transition to becoming the leading fragment-based drug discovery company.”

Kristina Schmidt, CEO of Graffinity, said the company’s technology has three key advantages. “First, Graffinity’s technology provides the broadest and deepest primary screen for fragment hits ever developed, second, the platform delivers readily usable novel chemistry within only four months, and thirdly, the Graffinity team [...] have screened more drug targets than any other team in the fragment space.”