Date: 2013-10-15
Type of information: Grant
Company: Nosopharm (France)
Investors: Armaments Procurement Agency (DGA) (France), General Directorate for Competitiveness, Industries and Services (Ministry for Industrial Renewal) (France)
Amount: €870,000
Funding type: grant
Planned used: At the heart of Nosopharm’s work is NOSO-95, a molecule discovered by Nosopharm from an entomopathogenic bacterium of the Xenorhabdus genus. It is the first of the new class of Odilorhabdin antibiotics. It offers significant potential for the treatment of multidrug resistant hospital-acquired infections, particularly those infections caused by Gram-negative pathogens (including the Enterobacteriaceae NDM-1, KPC and BLSE, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii). The funding secured will allow Nosopharm to continue to develop NOSO-95 and to advance it to regulatory preclinical development, immediately prior to human trials.
Others: * On October 15, 2013, Nosopharm, a specialist in the research and development of new anti-infective drugs, has announced that it has secured funding of € 870,000 ($ 1.18 million). The company is receiving this funding as part of the OOPERA project (Odilorhabdin: Preclinical optimization and study to combat antibiotic resistance), which commenced in the first quarter of 2013 and is scheduled to last three years. A total of € 1.6 million ($ 2.2 million) in funding has been allocated to this project.
The funding is being made available through the RAPID aid scheme for dual innovation implemented by France\'s Armaments Procurement Agency (DGA), the procurement arm of the French Ministry of Defense, and the General Directorate for Competitiveness, Industries and Services, an agency of the Ministry for Industrial Renewal. Under the RAPID scheme, the Armaments Procurement Agency (DGA) finances 80 per cent of the expenditure, with € 870,000 ($ 1.18 million) going to Nosopharm and € 500,000 ($ 679,000) to its academic partners. Nosopharm is contributing € 230,000 ($ 312,500).
Nosopharm has used part of the funding secured to recruit three new members of staff in R&D. This takes the company\'s total headcount to seven and adds new expertise in medicinal chemistry, supplementing its capabilities in drug discovery and microbiology and strengthening its technological platform.
To bring the project to completion, Nosopharm is supported by its partners: the joint Aix-Marseille University/French Army Biomedical Research Institute UMR-MD1 membrane transporters, chemoresistance and drug design research unit; and the UMR 5253 molecular architectures and nanostructured materials team (AM2N) at the Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (involving researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie in Montpellier and Montpellier Universities 1 and 2).
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
