Under the agreement, St Louis, Missouri-based Tripos will identify and optimize backup series for one of BioTie’s key drug discovery programs. Tripos will then rapidly create compound libraries for in-house screening by BioTie.
Tripos’ LeadHopping technology is essential to identifying structurally distinct, though shape-similar, compounds whose chemistry is unrelated to that of the original lead and therefore free of patent restrictions.
“Tripos demonstrated its outstanding computational drug design capabilities in a pilot project, and we were impressed with its ability to quickly transform virtual chemistry into viable, high-quality screening,” said Jari Saarinen, president and CEO of BioTie. “Those capabilities drove our selection of Tripos as our chemistry partner to accelerate BioTie’s drug discovery timelines.”
Financial terms of the multiyear agreement have not been disclosed.