Biopharmaceutical company collaborates to progress drug discovery programmes

PhoreMost, UK-based biopharmaceutical company, has entered into a collaboration with o2h discovery (o2h) — an Anglo-Indian medicinal chemistry company that has in-house capability to take drug discovery programmes to the IND filing stage.

This collaboration will see o2h deploy its medicinal chemistry expertise to help progress PhoreMost’s portfolio rapidly through the drug discovery stages. The biopharmaceutical company has already built a pipeline of novel targets and early drug discovery programmes using its phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER.

“Since its inception, PhoreMost’s model has been to forge a new approach to drug discovery, working collaboratively with partners in order to progress new medicines,” stated Dr Chris Torrance CEO of PhoreMost. “The alliance with o2h truly reflects this, and represents an important step in our mission to bring a greater diversity of therapies to patients, more quickly and at affordable prices.”

“We have been impressed by the ability of PhoreMost’s SITESEEKER platform to systematically identify first-in-class drug targets in areas of high unmet need, and are excited to be applying our highly complementary capabilities to develop these potentially high value programs,” added Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h discovery. “Our shared vision of working collaboratively is also a testament to the strength of the Cambridge UK Biotech cluster for discovery and progressing the next generation of therapeutics.”

The company had also recently announced the completion of an £11 million Series-A investment round, which will be used to expand operations on the Babraham Research Campus and progress several novel drug targets from its next-generation SITESEEKER phenotypic screening platform into first-in-class drug discovery programmes.