Matarki Bioscience has been spun out under a drug discovery model to carry Warsaw pharmaceutical research through pre-clinical and early clinical trials.

University of Warsaw has launched Poland-based drug discovery spinout Matariki Bioscience to develop compounds with therapeutic potential discovered at the peptides laboratory in the Faculty of Chemistry.

Matariki Bioscience will take forward Warsaw candidates targeting conditions such as chronic pain or cancer.

The company will focus on drug discovery, playing a hand in selecting assets for pre-clinical and early clinical trials in the hope they impress major pharmaceutical firms enough to fund later and more costly clinical experiments.

University of Warsaw believes there is a lack of local companies of Matariki’s kind bringing Polish pharmaceutical research closer to the marketplace. Matariki is the university’s first spinout to follow a drug discovery model.

Matariki has been co-founded by five scientists from Warsaw and the Institute of Pharmacology at Polish Academy of Sciences. One of the founders is Rafa? Wieczorek, an assistant professor in Warsaw’s Department of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Technology.

Wieczorek said: “We want everyone to see the potential of our studies – just getting patents is not enough. Patents are obviously a necessary condition, but in most cases so far these remain unused.”