Strand Genomics partners with Syngene for molecular libraries

R Baby Manoj - Bangalore

Having proven its mettle in the bio-research arena with a number of products led by its flagship micro-array and data analysis tool, Avadis (access, visualise, analysis, discover), the city-based leading genomics company, Strand Genomics, has now entered into the field of cheminformatics.

Dr Vijay Chandru, chairman and CEO of Strand Genomics said that the company has entered into a partnership with Syngene, Biocon’s Custom Research Company (CRC) in the field of synthetic chemistry and molecular biology.

In cheminformatics, Strand has started developing predictive models by leveraging its Avadis platform. Dr Chandru is of the view that since US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also approved the use of microarray as a standard practice, in the coming days,the acceptance of data-mining tools is likely to go up tremendously.

Unlike research biology, where a large volume of data is available in the public domain free of cost, cheminformatics is interesting as well as rewarding, even though challenging, as marketing a productbecomes easier.

‘‘While research biology leads to defining the target, cheminformatics helps in searching for the drug, making the business proposition more attractive. This is so because companies are always looking at ways of improving chances of discovering a good molecule. The Avadis platform, used in cheminformatics, will be three to five times more remunerative than if it were used in research biology,’’ Dr Chandru says.

However, he feels that building sales cycles for cheminformatics products will be more time consuming. As per the partnership, Syngene will be synthesising ‘target focused libraries’ being developed by Strand. These libraries would be differentiated by the use of predictive models of drug-like properties of smallmolecules at the design stage, he indicates.

A library based on the target, ‘GSK-3-Beta’will be synthesised by Syngene and marketed to clients working on Type II diabetes and perhaps for Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr Chandru said that the company is in talks with a number of players in the synthetic chemistry segment for potential parntership. These include, Procitius Research of Sanmar group, GVK, and Sai Life Sciences. The company has also ventured into consultancy practice. ‘‘In this segment, we will be building customised models localised to the requirements of the pharmaceutical companies,’’ he said.

In the area of cardio-toxicity studies, truTox recently launched by Strand (in SanDiego in January) is a model with great potential, says Chandru. ‘‘It is an in-silico hERG channel binding predictor. If a structure in any standard format like SDF/MOL/MOL2 or SMILES is submitted into truTox, its built-in modules will optimise the structure and add hydrogens if required. The descriptor generator in truTox will then compute around 1050 descriptors for the compound and then, send it to the hERG model, thus making a final prediction for hERG binding possible,’’ he says.

Having authored a successful partnership with Medibic of Japan, Strand is in talks with a very large company in the North America for strategic partnership. Refusing to divulge further details, Chandru said. ‘‘It is a very large company. We have already signed agreements towards finalising the partnership,’’ he added. The company has achieved break-even and will report profit by the year end, Dr Chandru informed. He has also informed that the company is looking for partners to market their products in the European market.

‘‘We have plans to add another 20 members to our team. At present about half of our team have PhDs,’’ he said elaborating on strengthening the company’s size. The company that derives its revenue from perpetual licences and upgrade fees, has already 150 licences in its kitty for Avadis alone.

The current market of molecular libraries is dominated by Russia and East European countries, mainly because of their expertise in mathematics and chemistry,

Dr Chandru informs. Still he foresees a bright future for Indian companies too in this competitive segment.

— rbmanoj@expressindia.com