Licensing opportunity
The quoted technology commercialisation company Medical Marketing International Group plc of Cambridge, UK, wants to sell or outlicense its ribozyme antiviral drug programme.
The programme, which is targeted at HIV, but is relevant to other viral infections also, has been developed in collaboration with scientists at King’s College London and Queen Mary, University of London, who have discovered a way of removing two cell surface receptors that are essential for HIV to enter the host cell. This is a different approach from current registered therapies that prevent HIV from replicating once it is inside the cell.
The company decided to divest this asset following a strategic review in which it has decided to concentrate its shrinking resources on its two oncology programmes in DNA cancer vaccines and in the development of ruthenium compounds as alternatives to platinum-based chemotherapeutics.
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