Isogenica and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory develop antimicrobial peptide drugs with potential to treat MRSA

Isogenica Ltd today announced that it has entered into an agreement with UK Ministry of Defence agency, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). The agreement concerns the development of antimicrobial peptide drugs and follows a successful collaboration to identify highly effective antimicrobial peptides which are active against a broad spectrum of bacteria.

Under the agreement Dstl has assigned all patent rights and know-how associated with the antimicrobial peptides for commercial use to Isogenica. Isogenica will exclusively market and distribute the products globally, paying royalty fees on sales to Dstl. Potential application areas include the treatment of drug resistant bacteria, such as MRSA and C Difficile, which have proven to be a major problem in hospital acquired infections.

Kevin Matthews, CEO of Isogenica commented: “We have very much enjoyed working with Dstl and are delighted that they have the confidence in Isogenica to take the next step and commercialise the technology. As a company we are focused on servicing the protein engineering needs of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and as a result of such partnerships we are discovering highly active lead candidates for drug development. Our focus now is to identify channels to market for these new and potent therapeutic peptides”.

Dstl joins an increasing number of leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies that have already partnered with Isogenica in the discovery of novel peptides for therapeutic and nontherapeutic applications or licenses. These include Amgen, AstraZeneca, Centocor, GE Healthcare, Invitrogen, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Phylogica, Smiths Detection Systems, UCB and Wyeth.