Cerylid seals US Anadys deal

Private drug discovery and genomics company Cerylid Biosciences has clinched a deal with Anadys Pharmaceuticals in the United States to search for new anti-infective compounds.

The strategic partnership, finalised just before the Bio 2002 meeting in Toronto this month, will apply Anadys' uHTS-ATLAS technology and targets to screen Cerylid's library of natural products derived from Australian organisms.

Cerylid CEO Dr Jackie Fairley described the agreement as "an ideal marriage of technologies".

"By combining our library of natural product samples with Anadys' unique and powerful screening methodologies, there are great prospects for the discovery of novel anti-infectives," Fairley said.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Anadys will gain access to Cerylid's portfolio of unique natural products samples derived predominantly from organisms of Australian origin.

Anadys will screen the samples against undisclosed anti-infective targets using its ultra high-throughput screening methodologies and Cerylid will then use its expertise in natural products chemistry to identify biologically active small molecules in extracts that show positive leads. Anadys will have responsibility for advancing compounds, as well as pre-clinical and clinical development. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Anadys President Dr Kleanthis Xanthopoulos said the company was pleased to gain access to Cerylid's industry-leading capabilities in natural products drug discovery.

"We believe that Cerylid has developed the world's largest and most chemically diverse natural products library, as well as unique techniques for the identification of novel compounds," he said. "We expect this to be an effective complement to the powerful screening techniques we have developed at Anadys and will facilitate our efforts to discover new and powerful drugs."

Cerylid's vice president of business development Dr Alex Szabo said the company was still working on a number of other deals, which it hoped to conclude before year's end.

"I was pleased we had discussions with some of those prospective partners at BIO and are moving forward with those," Szabo said, adding that the meeting was productive for the company..

"We hope to have at least a couple more deals in the coming year. I think we have identified a number of new partners in addition to the ones we went to meet with."