STOCKHOLM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nanologica AB today announced that the Company is a key player in the ORCHID project. The ORCHID alliance brings together tuberculosis (TB) expertise from academia, government research centres, non-profit organizations and biotech companies. The project is funded by European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme.
Within ORCHID, Nanologica’s first goal is to deal with the immediate formulation problems associated with the poor water solubility of GSK’s and other partner members’ TB compounds.
“Nanologica’s carrier materials are instrumental to the pharmaceutical industry,” said Andreas Bhagwani, CEO Nanologica. “Our approach can improve the formulation and solubility of water-insoluble active pharmaceutical compounds, to control their pharmacokinetic parameters, such as bioavailability. With this, we can achieve specific targeted release of active compounds.”
After years of extensive research in the area of pharmaceutical excipients, Nanologica has shown the value of their silica-based porous materials. Through slow and controlled release from the porous particles, the materials significantly enhance the solubility of pharmaceutical compounds.
Nanologica’s research team and other leading scientists worldwide will combine their expertise to investigate the potential of three different areas of research, all of which have shown potential effect against TB.
The three areas to be investigated are:
β-lactams – new evidence suggests that a novel approach could make these broad-spectrum antibiotics effective against TB. This approach will seek to design new animal models to demonstrate the potential of B-lactams as treatments against TB.
New InhA inhibitors – GSK, in collaboration with TB Alliance, has recently identified a chemical series that can inhibit recognised known TB target (InhA), which is essential for the bacterium’s survival. Tool compounds in this series have shown active against multi drug resistant strains (MDR-TB) in the lab and have also demonstrated promising activity in animal models of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Whole-cell hits – Compounds that have been shown to be active against TB in High Throughput Screening but whose mode of action is unknown. The project will aim to understand this activity.
The €10M project is part of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7), led and partly funded by the European Union which is providing €5.4M. The remainder of the funds will be provided by the ORCHID partners, largely from the provision of expertise and resources.
About ORCHID
The 11 partners that make up ORCHID are:
- The University of Birmingham - Birmingham, UK
- Univerza v Ljubljani - Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) - Toulouse, France
- Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development - New York, US
- Nanologica AB - Stockholm, Sweden
- Cellzome AG - Heidelberg, Germany
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris, France
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - Lausanne, Switzerland
- The Federal State Scientific Institution Saint-Petersburg Scientific Research Pasteur Institute of Epidemiology - Saint Petersburg, Russia
- Microbiology and Federal State Institution Saint Petersburg Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology of the Federal Agency for High Technology Medical Aid - Saint Petersburg, Russia
- Institut Pasteur Korea - Bundang gu, Korea
- GSK Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus - Madrid, Spain
About FP7
FP7 is the European Community Framework Programme for Research, Technology, Development and Demonstration covering almost all scientific disciplines. It is a collection of efforts at EU level to fund and promote research.
The main objective of FP7 is to support the Lisbon strategy, in directing Europe towards becoming one of the most competitive, knowledge-based economies in the world. In order to ensure this objective and help create a European Research Area, FP7 will run for a period of seven years, (2007–2013) and fund hundreds of projects originating from European players in research and innovation.
About Nanologica
Nanologica is a materials development company that specializes in evolving innovative nanoporous structures as carrier materials for a variety of applications, ranging from drug delivery to cosmetics. The patented technique enables Nanologica to create structures that have novel properties and functions based on their size, shape and composition. Nanologica’s unique technology is based on nanotechnology research from Stockholm University and Uppsala University. The Swedish-based company was founded in 2004. For more information, please visit www.nanologica.com.