Promega collaborates with China's GIBH

Wisconsin, USA-based Promega has entered into a collaboration agreement with the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health (GIBH), the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The agreement is designed to co-develop compound-profiling solutions for small-molecule and traditional Chinese medicine drug screening. By combining the drug discovery expertise of GIBH with the biological assay expertise of Promega, the partnership is intended to deliver turnkey services to pharmaceutical companies interested in speeding up their lead discovery and lead optimization processes, the US firm says.

GIBH scientists will offer contract services designed to profile the biology of potential leads using the Promega suite of biological drug screening assays. Initial plans call for development of Cytochrome P450, Cytotoxicity, Kinase and GPCR profiling assays. The GIBH will use the assays both in-house for its own discovery programs, as well as offer them on a contract basis to outside companies.