Avantium and WEP Enter into Collaboration for the Development of PolyPEG Technology for Pharmaceutical Applications
07 February 2006
Avantium Technologies (Avantium) and Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP) announced today that they have reached agreement for the joint development and commercialization of WEP's PolyPEG technology for (bio)pharmaceutical compounds.
PolyPEG is a drug-delivery solution to enhance the development of therapeutic products such as peptides, monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins. PolyPEG technology has been developed to increase the bioavailability of drug molecules. By improving the bioavailability of drug molecules and optimizing their pharmacokinetic profile, patients can benefit by decreased dosing frequencies and increased drug efficacy.
"We are very pleased to enter into this agreement with Avantium," said WEP's CTO, Professor David Haddleton. "Avantium is a leading company in high-throughput experimentation. Their experience in PEGylation process improvement and network in the industry allow us to speed up the development and as well as enhance the licensing opportunities of our PolyPEG technology".
"We welcome this opportunity to collaborate with Warwick Effect Polymers," said Tom van Aken, CEO of Avantium. "We see great potential in WEP's PolyPEG technology, because it can improve and prolong the performance of drug molecules. We believe that our partners and future customers can benefit significantly from the collaboration between WEP and Avantium to commercialize PolyPEG technology."
About PolyPEG®
The PolyPEG® family represents a new generation of pegylating / conjugating agents for conjugation to proteins, peptides and other molecules. PolyPEGs are comb shaped, non-toxic, water-soluble polymers with PEG (Polyethylene glycol) teeth on a methacrylic back bone and come in a variety of molecular weights, chain lengths and with different conjugating end-groups.
About Warwick Effect Polymers:
WEP is an innovative polymer synthesis company that is exploiting controlled polymerisation to produce novel polymers for the biosciences, materials and specialty chemicals industries. Based in Coventry in the UK, WEP was created as a spin out company from The University of Warwick in October 2001.
About Avantium Technologies
Avantium Technologies is a privately held, innovation-based research company located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Avantium provides high-throughput experimentation services and technologies to enable chemicals and life science companies to accelerate Research & Development. Avantium's proprietary platforms and skill sets reduce the time-to-market and improve the economics and success rate of research.
