PARIS ¿ Hybrigenics entered a research collaboration with Oxford GlycoSciences (OGS) for improving the selection and prioritization of drug candidates identified by OGS, with the possibility also of discovering new targets.

Hybrigenics, of Paris, will use its high-throughput screening technology to identify proteins that interact with a selection of proprietary OGS targets generated from its proteomics technology platform. In particular, it will screen a number of OGS proteins associated with cancer and neurological disorders against several of its complex polypeptide libraries.

OGS, of Abingdon, UK, expects the resulting data to give it a better understanding of the underlying biological pathways involved and the role of these proteins in these diseases.

Under the agreement, Hybrigenics will receive research and development funding from Oxford GlycoSciences, while ownership of the data generated from the collaboration will be shared equally between the companies. The British company will have the option of acquiring the exclusive rights to commercialize the data.

Hybrigenics¿ marketing manager, Ciline Goupil, stressed that the objective of the collaboration was to generate data, not products. She told BioWorld International that the deal provided for Hybrigenics to analyze a specific (but undisclosed) number of OGS proteins, and that it could be extended to enable more to be screened.

¿What is particularly interesting about the collaboration is the fact that it demonstrates the complementarity between the two companies¿ technologies,¿ she said. While OGS has developed a proprietary drug discovery technology platform combining classic proteomics and genomics, Hybrigenics identifies and validates new drug targets and therapeutic molecules using the functional proteomics technologies of high-throughput protein interaction mapping and cellular function analysis.

Hybrigenics already is engaged in a long-term collaboration with the Paris-based Institut Curie aimed at unraveling the mechanisms of cell development and the proliferation of cancer cells in humans, and in May the two organizations signed an agreement for the creation of a joint research facility for the development of cancer therapies.