BioWorld International Correspondent

InterMed Discovery GmbH is extending its natural products screening business into functional foods, dietary supplements and personal care by entering a strategic relationship with specialty chemicals firm Cognis GmbH.

The latter is taking a minority equity stake in Dortmund, Germany-based Intermed, which was formed in 2006 through a management buyout of the natural products screening business of the then Bayer Healthcare organization (now Berlin-based Bayer Schering Pharma AG).

"We see this as a significant step in the company's valuation," InterMed CEO Thomas Henkel told BioWorld International. "It's a significant amount of money for the company." The companies are not disclosing the size of the investment, however.

Cognis, which is based in Monheim am Rhein, Germany, will be responsible for development and commercialization of molecules identified from InterMed's natural product libraries.

"We bring the ideas and the intellectual property to the table," Henkel said. They have not fixed a limit on the number of programs that could result. "We will drive as many projects as we can into the pipeline," he said.

InterMed's natural products platform, which has some 20 years of development behind it, originally was designed for pharmaceutical applications and is, Henkel said, a "top-tier" big pharma infrastructure. Drug discovery remains a core part of the business, but InterMed's strategy from the outset entailed moving into adjacent fields. Last year it entered an alliance in the area of flavors and fragrances with Milan, Italy-based Axxam SpA.

InterMed aims to form similar partnerships with drug development firms. It has assets in discovery, lead optimization and preclinical development in areas such as oncology, infectious disease and immunology.

Its platform includes what Henkel said is the world's largest purified natural product library, with more than 15,000 unique compounds, as well as extensive collections of fractions obtained from microbial, plant and marine sources, which contain about 700,000 naturally occurring compounds. Its business model is based on taking a royalty position in molecules that partners take forward from its libraries. "We are not a service company," Henkel said.

InterMed can offer partners a "re-entry point" into natural products research, he said. Interest is coming from companies seeking chemistry that is "complementary" to what they obtain from synthethic sources, he said, and from firms seeking unique molecules that modulate validated targets.