Polyphor-Boehringer Ingelheim alliance moves forward

Privately-held Swiss biotechnology company Polyphor has entered into the next stage of its drug discovery collaboration with family-owned German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim.

This collaborative project was originally initiated in June 2012 with the objective to discover and develop novel macrocyclic compounds for targets nominated by Boehringer Ingelheim. Following the successful hit identification phase, the companies have now agreed to move forward to generate candidates suitable for preclinical development. Financial details were not disclosed.

Daniel Obrecht, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Polyphor, said: 'We are extremely pleased to move this collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim to the next research stage. This achievement clearly demonstrates that our proprietary MacroFinder platform can successfully address difficult intracellular targets where small molecule approaches have failed so far. We look forward to extending and further strengthening the collaboration with our research partners at Boehringer Ingelheim.”