Promising steps in drug development

PharmAust subsidiary Epichem, in collaboration with Murdoch University and an international pharmaceutical group, has discovered several anti-parasitic drug compounds and will receive a royalty from any future commercialisations.

Murdoch University has filed a provisional patent, and Epichem will receive a 12% royalty on net revenue results from any commercial drugs that are developed from the intellectual property. An additional patent is expected to be filed within the next 12 months to cover Epichem’s latest and most promising class of antiparasitic compounds.

The compounds that have been discovered are active against a variety of parasites including trypanosomes and Leishmania for which there are currently no safe and effective treatments.

Epichem Director Dr Wayne Best said a number of the compounds were being developed, and one lead compound had already passed the Ames test with no signs of mutagenicity. The Ames test is a key indicator of a compound’s genotoxicity and is a critical step in the development of any new drug candidate.

The Company said its latest compounds for the treatment of trypanosomes, which cause the potentially fatal African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, have shown excellent in vitro activity.

Epichem is also currently researching a treatment for Leishmaniasis, a serious parasitic disease found in the Americas, Europe and Asia, and which affects two million people a year.

In addition, collaborative studies have also confirmed a novel class of compounds that are potently active against cryptosporidium, an infectious water-borne organism that can cause infectious diarrhoea illnesses in humans and livestock and even death in cases of severe infection.

Taken from http://www.biotechnologynews.net