PhoreMost said today it will partner with The Wistar Institute to identify novel targets for potential new treatments in cancer, aging, and the immune system. The value of the collaboration was not disclosed.
Wistar researchers will apply PhoreMost’s SITESEEKER® phenotypic dug discovery technology to their high-throughput assays for undruggable targets deemed to be of interest in cancer, aging, and immunology.
SITESEEKER is based on PhoreMost’s protein interference, or PROTEINi®, genome-wide target and identification and validation platform, a live-cell assay system that uses protein-fragment libraries with billions of different three-dimensional shapes to help design small molecule drugs by seeking hidden, druggable sites across the human genome. The platform is designed to reveal sites with a useful therapeutic function by registering a specific phenotype.
PhoreMost added that Wistar will also support downstream drug discovery efforts by providing the company with specialist disease biology knowledge and drug mode-of-action studies on a project-by-project basis.
“PhoreMost and Wistar share the belief that innovative small biotechs working together with nimble research institutes could represent a new model for drug discovery to increase the diversity of new therapies being developed and bring them to patients at lower costs,” PhoreMost CEO Chris Torrance, Ph.D., said in a statement.
Last year, Phylogica granted PhoreMost a worldwide nonexclusive license for phenotypic screening of its Phylomer® libraries, in return for a 7.5% equity stake in the company and commercialization rights.