New Medicines from the Arctic Ocean

LDC and UiT The Arctic University of Norway Collaborate

08-Oct-2014 - Germany

The Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC), a renowned translational research organization, and UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) have teamed up to discover new medicines from the marine arctic environment. The partners will focus on human diseases with high unmet medical need.

UiT has gathered unique natural product libraries from all kinds of organisms living in the Arctic Sea, an unparalleled source for bioactives highly interesting for drug discovery. The extreme conditions in the Arctic Sea have sparked the evolution of diverse marine organisms containing numerous as yet unknown compounds.

“These bioactives clearly have great potential, and I am extremely pleased to exploit their value for the discovery of new therapies, together with the UiT”, comments Dr Bert Klebl, CEO of the LDC. “Moreover, we are very much looking forward to becoming the UiT’s partner for advancing their projects to the stage of validated pharmaceutical leads.”

Under the terms of the agreement, the LDC may use the UiT library for screening purposes using targets sourced from its academic network. In addition, the partners intend to initiate joint drug discovery and development projects based on UiT targets. The partners will cooperate closely from the target selection stage through to the commercialization of resulting leads, with the UiT contributing project-specific expertise, its libraries and financial resources, and the LDC adding its comprehensive drug discovery and development know-how, together with its first-tier industry network. Potential revenues from commercialization will be shared between the partners. The collaboration is initially planned for a period of five years.

“We are very privileged to team up with such a prestigious and renowned R&D organization, which has an impressive track record." says Dean at the Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, UiT, Edel Elvevoll. "The collaboration with LDC significantly increases our ability to discover and develop drugs based on organisms from the Arctic environment."

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/150013/new-medicines-from-the-arctic-ocean.html