CAMBRIDGE, England, July 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ —
Executives from O2h (Cambridge, UK) and Heptares Therapeutics (Welwyn
Garden City, UK) signed an agreement to substantially increase the number of
FTE chemists provided by O2h to support discovery programmes at Heptares.
Dr Miles Congreve, Head of Chemistry at Heptares said, “O2h has been a
valuable partner for Heptares and we are happy to further extend our
synthetic chemistry team to include a full lab unit at O2h.”
O2h’s 12 FTE lab units are modular, fully-customizable, well-equipped
and IT-secure spaces which offer the optimum environment for highly
productive, dedicated chemistry teams.
“Heptares has built some great partnerships with large biotechnology and
pharma companies who recognize the strength of the Company’s GPCR expertise
and proprietary StaR(R) technology’s. This is a new milestone in our
on-going relationship with Heptares and we are excited to support them on
their journey,” said Sunil Shah, CEO, O2h.
About Heptares Therapeutics
Heptares is a drug discovery company creating new medicines targeting
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The Company is currently leveraging its
GPCR expertise and proprietary StaR(R) technology to build a pipeline of
best-in-class and first-in-class GPCR-targeted medicines for the treatment
of CNS, metabolic and other diseases.
GPCRs represent the single most important family of drug targets in the
human body, yet, due to their inherent instability when removed from cell
membranes, little or no structural information about these valuable targets
has been available to drive structure-based drug discovery programmes.
Heptares’ StaR(R) (Stabilised Receptor) technology enables the first-ever
thermo-stabilisation of GPCRs. This breakthrough allows Heptares scientists
to resolve GPCR structures and deploy structure-based drug discovery
techniques to identify potent and selective drug candidates to previously
undruggable targets.
Heptares has raised more than $40 million from leading venture
investors, Clarus Ventures, MVM Life Science Partners, Novartis Option Fund
and Takeda Ventures, and has formed partnerships with AstraZeneca, Shire,
Takeda and Novartis. For additional information, please visit:
http://www.heptares.com
About O2h, a Piramal Group Company
O2h is the discovery services arm of Piramal Pharma Solutions Ltd, a top
10 global CRAMS group, offering a unique full-service partnership at every
stage of the pharma life-cycle. Piramal Pharma Solutions employs 2,500
people across 9 specialist sites in North America, UK and India. The Piramal
group has a 140 year history and is publicly listed company (BSE:
PIRAMALHE).
O2h’s 200 employees work within its project management office in
Cambridge, UK and its operations in Ahmedabad India. Current clients of O2h
include several top 20 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the US,
Europe and Japan.O2h adheres to the highest standards of performance with a
particular emphasis on rapid interactive communications and delivery speed.
Services provided by O2h include FTE-based medicinal, synthetic chemistry,
and process chemistry as well as in vitro biology services. Further
information on O2h can be found at http://www.o2h.com.
Contact information:
Dr Ekta Ahuja
[email protected]
OXYGEN HEALTHCARE LTD
23 Cambridge Science Park
CB4 0EY
SOURCE Oxygen Healthcare Ltd (O2h)
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