Mimotopes in deal with BHRI

Australia's Commonwealth Biotechnologies says that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Mimotopes, has entered into a licensing agreement with the Baker Heart Research Institute of Melbourne, for jointly-developed drug candidates targeting pulmonary arterial hypertension. As part of the deal, Mimotopes has assigned the intellectual property for a library of compounds to BHRI in return for a future milestone and/or licensing fees received by BHRI. Mimotopes will also contribute its medicinal chemistry expertise on a fee-for-service basis to assist in the clinical development of these compounds.

Nick Hagan, Mimotopes' chief executive, noted that "the new compounds developed on Mimotopes' combinatorial chemistry platform have given very encouraging results in biological studies carried out at the BHRI."

BHRI commercialization manager Bev Thomas added that, "while the initial target therapeutic application is pulmonary arterial hypertension, this agreement could see the application of new therapies to a wide range of cardiovascular diseases.