Thursday May 23, 5:12 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Euroscreen s.a.
Euroscreen Announces CCR5 Licensed to Pfizer
BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Euroscreen s.a. has completed a license agreement with Pfizer Inc. of New York for access to Euroscreen's CCR5 patent rights. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
The license covers various aspects of the specific G-Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR), known as CCR5 (a chemokine receptor), which has a central role in the mechanism by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) binds to and enters white blood cells. Importantly, Euroscreen's patent estate is the first to establish a direct role for the CCR5 receptor in HIV infection.
Commenting on the announcement, Professor Marc Parmentier, CSO and a founder of Euroscreen, said, "We are very pleased to have such companies pursuing important therapeutics for the CCR5 receptor. In 1996, we discovered that the GPCR, to which certain HIV-blocking chemokines bind, is the CCR5 receptor. Subsequent research confirmed the link between CCR5 and CD4, and its crucial role in processes of HIV infection and immunity. Since then, the CCR5 receptor has become a target of potential great importance in the hunt for drugs that can prevent HIV infection."
About Euroscreen s.a.
Euroscreen is a world leader in G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). The Company integrates its research expertise in this area with its patented high-throughput AequoScreen(tm) cellular assay platform to 'deorphanize' GPCRs, i.e. to identify new ligands of GPCRs that might form the basis of new therapeutics.
The Company is building its own patent portfolio of GPCR targets and novel drug leads for licensing to biopharmaceutical companies, and to date has agreements with Alchemia, Galapagos, Merck & Co, Nanosyn, Solvay, Syngenta and UCB. Euroscreen has also licensed intellectual properties from academic centers, such as Brussels University, the University of Georgia Research Foundation, the University of Virginia Patent Foundation and the University of Toronto, for patented rights to its GPCR-based products (recombinant cell lines and membrane preparations) and services (screening and cloning).
Euroscreen is a privately held company based in Brussels, Belgium. The Company was spun out of the University of Brussels in 1994 from technology acquired from Professors Jacques Dumont, Marc Parmentier and Gilbert Vassart and has since raised more than Euro 8m in equity funding and grants. Euroscreen currently has 80 employees of which 50 are in R&D.
More information can be found at euroscreen.be
SOURCE: Euroscreen s.a. |
