ShangPharma Innovation and SRI International announced a strategic collaboration to accelerate the development of innovative pharmaceuticals targeting neuroinflammation as a treatment for Alzheimer's and other diseases.
This collaboration with SRI marks another milestone for SPII in its effort to enable a series of promising therapeutic projects at major institutions with a history of innovative contributions to biomedical research. Internationally recognized for its expertise through all stages of drug discovery and development, SRI Biosciences, a division of SRI International, has a well-established drug pipeline, having advanced four if its own drugs to market and more than 100 partner medicines to clinical trials.
"It has been said that Alzheimer's disease could bankrupt the nation by 2050 in the absence of major advances," said Walter H. Moos, Ph.D., CEO of SPII and retired president of SRI Biosciences. "I am exceptionally pleased to work again with outstanding colleagues at SRI to tackle such an important problem."
Under the terms of the agreement, SPII and SRI will apply methods to advance novel enzyme inhibitors that target brain inflammation and will seek third party licensees for the compounds. SPII will work with preferred partners, including its affiliate, ChemPartner, to provide discovery and development capabilities to SPII and SRI collaborative projects. The organizations will design, screen, carry out mechanistic studies, and ultimately progress novel drug candidates toward clinical trials.