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Crystax Pharmaceuticals and Servier sign a collaboration agreement

By 19 de October de 2005November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 19.10.2005

Crystax Pharmaceuticals and Servier sign a collaboration agreement

, a biotech enterprise located at the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park), and the French pharmaceutical company have signed a collaboration agreement for the determination of the 3D structure of an undisclosed target complexed to several lead candidates related to the field of oncology.

The research contract establishes that CrystaX will provide its expertise and capacity in high-throughput protein expression and purification, and X-ray crystallography to elucidate the 3D structure of target-ligand complexes. The results from the project will allow Servier to increase efforts devoted to the drug discovery.

Founded in 1954, Servier markets its products in 140 countries, mainly in the field of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, pathologies of the nervous system, cancer, and bone and joint diseases. The company forms part of the Grup Servier, an entity that earmarks approximately 25% of its sales revenue to R+D projects, which involve 2,500 employees.

CrystaX, located at the PCB and founded in 2002, is a pioneer in structural studies applied to drug discovery and provides a wide range of services to the pharmaceutical industry. The company is equipped with an integrated technology platform that includes gene cloning, high-throughput protein expression and purification, X-ray crystallography, NMR and Fragment Screening, an emerging technology to identify novel lead structures for drug development.

Having completed this financing round, CrystaX has achieved a capital increase of 2.1 million euros. The operation has been managed by the risk capital enterprise Najeti and supported by Invertec and Barcelona Emprèn. According to the director of CrystaX, Claas Junghans, “this operation demonstrates the investors’ confidence in our project and it is a good sign both for us and for the local scientific community. Support from entrepreneurs with long-term vision is vital and it is essential that they appreciate the tremendous value of the emerging field of biotechnology in Spain”. Furthermore, CrystaX enjoys other funding sources, such as a participative loan from ENISA and public subsidies from the Generalitat de Catalunya.