Leo Pharma enters natural compounds research partnership

Leo Pharma, the Danish pharmaceutical company, has entered into a new collaboration with Galapagos, a Belgian genomics-based drug discovery company, to research natural compounds for antibacterial uses.

Galapagos’ service division, BioFocus DPI, has a collection of natural compounds that will be screened, verified and profiled for Leo Pharma’s antibacterial research programme. In return, Galapagos will receive up to 400,000 euros (267,000 pounds) in project fees and potentially up to three million euros in milestone payments.

It is the first collaboration to make use of Galapagos’ natural compound collection and it says that antibiotic screening is a “particularly appropriate” use of the compounds.

Dr Tore Duvold, vice president of drug discovery at Leo Pharma, said the company is delighted to partner Galapagos, adding that his company expected to strengthen its antibiotic discovery programme through the use of the “significant repository” of natural compounds.

“We trust this will be the start of a successful and long term arrangement to discover new pharmaceutical natural products,” he stated.

In recent months, GlaxoSmithKline and Roche have announced partnerships with Galapagos, while AstraZeneca announced in August that it had appointed Galapagos’ BioFocus DPI division to provide “hit-to-lead medicinal chemistry services” in researching respiratory and inflammatory drugs.