Strasbourg, France-based NovAliX Group is focusing on the development of enabling chemistry and biophysical technologies to support the pharmaceutical industry’s outsourcing needs from discovery to manufacturing.
Heidelberg, Germany-based Graffinity Pharmaceuticals’ fragment screening platform combines chemical microarrays with a proprietary method for the standardised, label-free detection of compound-protein interactions via SPR-imaging.
With this acquisition, Graffinity’s proprietary fragment-based SPR drug discovery technology will be added to NovAliX’s integrated chemistry and biophysical capabilities.
NovAliX president Stephan Jenn said that the acquisition of Graffinity will be a significant step toward their goal of providing integrated drug discovery services.
"With a diverse small molecule library and patented SPR-imaging technology, the Graffinity platform is fully complementary to NovAliX’ offerings in X-Ray crystallography, supramolecular mass spectrometry and liquid-/solid-state NMR," Jenn said.
"With this second technology-oriented acquisition in 2010, we are forming a group of more than 120 scientists developing and applying research capabilities in discovery and development of medicines."
Graffinity CEO Kristina Schmidt said that they have a complete offering of discovery services covering the spectrum from first hit generation to lead optimisation.
Graffinity chief business officer Mathias Woker said that pharma and biotech customers have the opportunity with the NovAliX Group to flexibly outsource comprehensive discovery functions.