Research Collaboration Agreement with Novo Nordisk

RNS Number : 8912J

e-Therapeutics plc

10 December 2018

 

E-therapeutics Signs Research Collaboration Agreement with Novo Nordisk

Oxford, UK, 10 December 2018: e-therapeutics plc (AIM: ETX, "e-therapeutics") is pleased to announce a research collaboration with Novo Nordisk under which the companies will use e-therapeutics' proprietary Network-Driven Drug Discovery (NDD) platform to look to discover potentially novel biological mechanisms and therapeutic approaches for a specific area of type-2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes currently accounts for approximately 90% of the estimated 425 million people with diabetes globally^[1], and new treatments are urgently required to tackle the growing incidence of the condition.

Under the Agreement, e-therapeutics will work with Novo Nordisk over a period of 12 months and use its NDD approach to identify novel intervention strategies, biological pathways and compounds for testing that could potentially form the basis of novel therapies.

Jan Nygaard Jensen, Deputy Head of Novo Nordisk Research Center Oxford and Head of Bioinformatics, said: "We are looking forward to cooperating with e-therapeutics. It is an exciting technology and we will investigate if it can support some of the early target discovery efforts we are building in Novo Nordisk Research Center Oxford".

e-therapeutics will be reimbursed for its work under this collaboration and Novo Nordisk has the option to license relevant IP generated under the collaboration. Any future license would require mutual agreement of commercial terms. Financial details of the collaboration have not been disclosed.

Dr Ray Barlow, CEO at e-therapeutics, said: "We are delighted to be working with Novo Nordisk, a world leader and innovator in diabetes care. This collaboration highlights the use of our Network-Driven Drug Discovery (NDD) platform to understand and potentially create new treatments for complex diseases of great relevance to society, medicine and the industry. Our new collaboration with Novo Nordisk is the result of a systematic and rigorous business development exercise over the past year and we hope to announce a number of additional collaborations during the course of 2019."

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

e-therapeutics plc Ray Barlow, Chief Executive Officer Steve Medlicott, Finance Director	Tel: [phone] www.etherapeutics.co.uk
Numis Securities Limited Michael Meade/Freddie Barnfield (Nominated Adviser) James Black (Corporate Broking)	Tel: [phone] www.numis.com
FTI Consulting Simon Conway/Brett Pollard	Tel: [phone] [e-mail]

About e-therapeutics

We are an Oxford, UK-based company with a unique and powerful computer-based drug discovery platform and a specialised approach to network biology.

Our novel network-driven methodology allows us to discover new and better drugs in a more efficient and effective way.

We use our highly productive drug Discovery Engine to develop our own IP-protected, pre-clinical drug discovery programmes which will be of interest to partners looking to acquire or in-license novel and differentiated assets. We are currently developing two programmes in immuno-oncology and have a number of partner-ready projects in areas such as fibrosis and tumour microenvironment.

Because of our novel network-driven drug discovery (NDD) approach, we believe there is potential to enter into several different types of collaborative partnerships with biotech, pharma and other technology companies to create sustainable mutual value.

About Network-Driven Drug Discovery (NDD)

e-Therapeutics' proprietary NDD platform comprises a suite of powerful computational tools to augment and interrogate the vast amount of biological information currently available in both public and private databases.

Our NDD platform is founded on sophisticated network science and employs techniques such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and state-of-the-art data analysis tools. Using our biological expertise, we can create and analyse network models of disease to identify likely proteins that could effectively be disrupted to treat the disease.

We believe that our network-driven approach more realistically reflects the true complexity of disease, with its multiple and often interconnected cellular pathways. By modelling and analysing disease networks and considering the pattern of connections between proteins, and not just single pathways, we more efficiently select the very best drug-like compounds for screening and for subsequent medicinal chemistry and pre-clinical testing. With our novel methodology, significant numbers of active molecules can be identified and tested quickly. Our approach is highly productive and consistently generates hits that have been progressed into potent, selective and novel drug molecules.

Our overall aim is to discover more efficacious drugs more effectively. By using more biologically realistic, cell and tissue-based assays we can choose and design compounds that are more likely to translate into better, more clinically efficacious drugs.

 

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[1] IDF Diabetes Atlas, 8th Edition (2017)

 

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