BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JPT Peptide Technologies GmbH (JPT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BioNTech AG (Mainz, Germany), IUCT and LEITAT (Barcelona, Spain) announced today their collaboration on the joint development of an enhanced anticancer therapy based on the biofocused targeting of nucleoside analogs linked to small cyclic peptidomimetics. The goal of the partnership is to create novel chemotherapeutic products exhibiting an enhanced safety and efficacy profile by selectively targeting inactive cytotoxic compounds toward tumor cells. The collaboration combines JPT’s proven and long term track record in executing peptide based hit identification and hit-to-lead projects with IUCT’s and LEITAT’s key expertise in biotechnological synthesis of nucleoside analogs and activity screening studies.
“IUCT and Leitat have been successfully working on the development of new therapies against neoplastic diseases for several years. With JPT we have found a reputable and strong partner that complements our own expertise in creating new targeted anticancer compounds”, stated Josep Castells, Executive President at IUCT.
Holger Wenschuh, Managing Director at JPT adds, “The previous scientific work at LEITAT and IUCT lays a solid basis to apply our peptide focused medicinal chemistry experience and capabilities to systematically amend physicochemical properties of the target compounds creating optimized functional profiles.”
The collaborative project is funded in part by the EuroTransbio Initiative.
About JPT Peptide Technologies GmbH
JPT Peptide Technologies GmbH is a DIN ISO 9001:2008 certified research and development partner and innovative service provider for peptide related projects. JPT’s key technologies SPOTTM - for ultra-high-throughput peptide synthesis and screening, PepStarTM - for high-content peptide microarrays, PepTrackTM - for flexible peptide library assembly, PepMixTM - for antigen specific T-cell stimulation using peptide pools, and SpikeTideTM - for protein biomarker quantification accelerate research and development in areas such as immune monitoring, vaccine development, peptide biomarker discovery, peptide lead identification and optimization, enzyme profiling and proteomics.
About IUCT
IUCT is a high-tech SME working since 1997 on the development of new products and processes to be licensed to the pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnological sector. As its core business, IUCT performs research in the fields of drug discovery, drug development, industrial biotechnology and green chemistry. In the area of drug discovery, IUCT’s medicinal chemistry department has a long experience in indications related to cancer, viral diseases, CNS diseases, inflammation, pain and osteoarthritis. In addition, IUCT’s Industrial Biotechnology section developed the HTB Platform allowing the synthesis of large numbers of complex molecules not being readily accessible by chemical synthesis methods.
About LEITAT
LEITAT Technological Center is a private research center which aims to provide leading-edge solutions to the industry, adding value to both products and processes. R+D+I activities focus at the biomedical, oncology, biotechnology and nanotechnology & biomaterial sectors among others. Actually, LEITAT’s therapeutic target is cancer in its broad sense, including the identification of new oncology targets, the generation of novel molecular entities to modulate them, and the characterization of its in vitro & in vivo activity profiles in order to deliver these innovative drugs as clinical development candidates. LEITAT has recently patented two new NBEs and a disruptive DNA technology with therapeutic and diagnostic applications.