UCB links up with charity and university on novel research project

Belgium’s largest pharma company UCB (Euronext Brussels: UCB) has linked up with two UK non-profit groups to form a new research consortium.

UCB’s collaboration with charity MRC Technology and the University of Leicester aims to identify novel opportunities for drug discovery through the innovative use of antibodies in structure-based drug discovery and design.

The consortium will use antibodies to identify and characterize novel regulatory or allosteric sites on therapeutic target proteins, to stabilize functionally important protein conformational states, and to characterize key structural features of complexes formed with activity modulating antibodies. The unique knowledge gained by this approach will be exploited to guide the discovery and design of novel small molecule therapeutics, addressing unmet clinical needs and delivering significant benefits for patients.