De Montfort spins with Ithaka

UK-based De Montfort University (DMU) has unveiled plans to launch a new drug discovery company with life sciences commercialisation company Ithaka Life Sciences to market technology designed to streamline the development of drugs and medicines.

Called CYP Design (CDL), the UK-based spin out will incorporate new technology, CYPs, to provide new products and services originally developed at and licenced from DMU. CYPs, which are responsible for the metabolism of drugs in people, currently need dry ice to be shipped and expensive cooling equipment to use. The latest DMU innovation allows for the CYPs to be handled at room temperature.

“The development of new drugs can be very time-consuming and costly. It can take up to 14 years from the initial idea and cost hundreds of millions of pounds. Thousands of potential new drugs are tested initially for every one successfully brought to market,” said Bob Chaudhuri, a professor at DMU.

He added: “Early drug discovery work has to identify new chemical compounds which are potentially useful without being toxic to humans. Current testing methodologies do not address the problem as these model systems often react differently than humans to new chemicals.”