Multi-Project Drug Collaboration seeks to Identify Novel Targets

Biopharmaceutical company Phoremost announced that it will deploy its in-house expertise and next-generation phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER®, towards disease relevant pathways nominated by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co, a world-leading pharmaceutical company dedicated to the research and development of highly-innovative drugs and diagnostics. Discoveries will be further validated and characterised by Otsuka as part of its internal development pipeline, with an initial focus on gene therapy applications of identified targets.

Based on proprietary protein interference, or ‘PROTEINi®’, the SITESEEKER platform can probe the entire proteome in a live cell environment for novel druggable targets linked to any chosen disease. This enables the systematic discovery of functionally active peptides which are directly linked to useful therapeutic applications.

Dr Chris Torrance, CEO of PhoreMost, said: “This collaboration with Otsuka is further recognition of the power of the SITESEEKER approach to drive the identification of novel, druggable targets. We are particularly excited to be exploring not only small molecule therapeutics but also gene therapy applications of our platform.”