Boehringer Ingelheim and Polyphor announce MacroFinder alliance

Boehringer Ingelheim is allying with Polyphor over the use of the latter company's MacroFinder drug discovery technology in its clinical research.

The agreement will see Boehringer Ingelheim provide funding to Polyphor in order to apply the technology to identify and optimise a series of novel macrocyclic drug candidates addressing a number of therapeutic targets.

Specifically, the research will focus on challenging targets – including protein/protein interactions – that would be difficult to address using classical small molecule drug discovery approaches.

Boehringer Ingelheim will be solely responsible for the subsequent development and commercialisation of the identified drug candidates, with Polyphor to be entitled to receive royalty payments on future sales.

Jean-Pierre Obrecht, chief executive officer of Polyphor, said: "Boehringer Ingelheim has an excellent reputation in the industry and the conclusion of this agreement therefore constitutes both a scientific and commercial validation of the MacroFinder platform."

Last month, Boehringer Ingelheim announced plans to create a major new technical centre in Europe in order to bolster its production capacity for active pharmaceutical ingredients.