Compounds for free
Aurora would like to inspire researchers and scientists to take part in the projects on business-to-business basis including early as well as later stage drug discovery and development.
How Aurora is going to contribute to B2B projects?
Aurora is going to provide the partners with small drug-like libraries specially prepared for your target/disease/indication.
How do the partners benefit from collaboration with Aurora?
The extraordinary large compound collection (100 mln.) allows researchers almost unlimited access to structures for drug research and development.
On the other hand, Aurora's drug repositioning program contains 15,000 drugs and substances registered in the USA, in Europe, in Japan and other countries/parts of the world that allows:
1) a quick approval process and speedy commercialization for known drugs having the new or different indications;
2) applying a Selective Optimization of Side Activities (SOSA), Camille G.Wermuth. Drug Discovery Today. 2006, Volume 11, Number 3/4, p.160-164.
"The most fruitful basis for the discovery of a new drug is to start with an old drug", said Sir James Black, Nobel Laureate 1988 in Physiology and Medicine. The rationale behind this approach is that, in addition to their main activity, almost all drugs used in human therapy show one or several pharmacological side effects. They are able to interact with other biological targets, albeit less potent. The objective is to proceed to a reversal of affinities, such that the identified side effect becomes the principal activity. The most important advantage with this method is that the molecules derived from SOSA switches already possess drug-like properties and, therefore, show good absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) profiles. In addition, molecules emerging from a SOSA approach frequently present far fewer toxicity problems than would be expected from other approaches.
Why Aurora's looking for additional partners?
Aurora's cooperation with NIH agencies based on cutting edge technology for in vitro, in vivo and in some cases clinical study provide the very good quality hits and leads. In the light of encouraging results we're going to become the new projects sponsor. Aurora is looking for additional partners who could be able to perform in vitro and/or in vivo testing.
How to join our partnership?
The obtained results will be available to all consortium partners and shared jointly. The intellectual property must be protected by jointly owned patents and drafting of legal documents to avoid pitfalls. The joint venture agreement (or Memorandum of Understanding) should be signed by partners who want to enter into a project together. In the agreement, the details of the deal to set out, what everyone agrees to do and how and when everyone gets paid, what percentage, what timing, taxes etc. A purpose of agreement is to document each party's obligation and to allocate and minimize each party's risks during the performance of drug discovery and drug development. A biological target and disease as well as work plan details should be added to agreement and depends on the discussions and dialogue between the consortium partners.