Licensing opportunity
Researchers at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, have developed an assay to evaluate the ability of new drug candidates to act as antiviral agents. The University welcomes enquiries from commercial partners interested in licensing the invention, which has been granted European and US patent protection.
Developed by Dr Martin Ryan, the assay can be used to study how well new drug candidates inhibit an interaction that is essential for picornaviral replication in a host cell. It can be applied to a number of picornaviruses (including rhinoviruses and enteroviruses) as well as the calciviruses feline calcivirus and Southampton virus.
According to the university, the assay has an established protocol and uses readily available and inexpensive materials. It can be used to screen both peptides and non-peptidal compounds.
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