Institute Pasteur Korea announces the selected proposal for collaboration in drug discovery

The internationally-renowned translational research institute builds partnerships with a Korean university through the 2011 Drug Discovery Collaboration Program.

September 01, 2011, Gyeonggi, S. Korea ? The Institut Pasteur Korea (IP-K) today announced the selected proposal for a new drug discovery program that aims to commercialize basic research. Called the 2011 Drug Discovery Collaboration Program, the venture presents an opportunity to Korean Academia in the Life Science sector to play an active role in the discovery and development of new small molecule drugs.

The selected applicant Professor Kang Young-Sun, a member of department of Biomedical Science & Technology at Kunkook University, mentioned that “The call opened up a great opportunity to integrate my ideas and expertise with the drug discovery technologies and infrastructure of IP-K. I’m excited to see the translation of my proposal into the discovery of new therapeutics.” Professor Kang is a renowned scientist for the discovery on new mechanism of innate immunity and an expert of autoimmune diseases and anti-inflammation research. He did Ph.D. in veterinary medicinal toxicology at Kunkook Univ., and postdoctoral research in innate immunity at Rockefeller University.

Commenting on the selected proposal, Ulf Nehrbass, CEO of IP-K, said that “I am excited about partnering with one of the leading life science Korean Universities. IP-K has developed sophisticated drug screening and development technologies and we will provide the technology, skills and know-how necessary to help translate strong basic research into commercial applicability.”
The goal of the program is to discover, identify and develop new small molecular drugs. This collaboration will adapt cell-based assays to high content and high throughput screening platforms at IP-K in order to search for hit compounds. These compounds will be prioritized for further drug discovery and development.

“IP-K is anticipating first in class and best in class compounds from this collaboration,” says Lisa Cechetto, Head of Business Development at IP-K. “The end goal is to out-license preclinical compounds to Korean Pharma. Intellectual property rights generated from this collaboration will be shared by both parties under a subsequent research collaboration agreement”.


About Institut Pasteur Korea
Institut Pasteur Korea is an independent non-profit institute founded in April, 2004 with a strategic focus on enabling technologies and therapeutic development in disease models pertaining to public health. IP-K has developed a novel research platform that combines chemical genomics with high content visual screening by bringing together the latest advances in biology, technology, and chemistry. The application of the platform technology in the fields of infectious disease and chronic illness allows basic science to be extended to drug discovery. In turn the application of functional genomics - using global siRNA - allows further elucidation of the basic molecular and genetic underpinnings of disease. Visit http://www.ip-korea.org.