drug discovery engine

Santaris Pharma A/S powerful Drug Discovery Engine

Santaris Pharma A/S Drug Discovery Engine combines the Company's knowledge and expertise in the field of RNA-targeted therapies with its unique capabilities and extensive experience in developing LNA-based drugs to identify, design and develop drug candidates quickly and efficiently. With years of drug discovery and development expertise and proprietary bioinformatics capabilities to aid in the design and optimization of LNA-based drugs, Santaris Pharma A/S is uniquely positioned to rapidly identify appropriate RNA targets and subsequently generate optimally designed drugs for a range of diseases.

The drug discovery and development expertise and multidisciplinary approach of the Santaris Pharma A/S research and development teams, which is comprised of molecular biologists, geneticists, bioinformaticists and computer programmers, allows Santaris Pharma A/S to rapidly identify appropriate RNA targets and subsequently generate optimally designed drugs for a range of diseases.

Leveraging its Drug Discovery Engine, Santaris Pharma A/S has been able to create an attractive in-house pipeline of innovative LNA-based drugs in the field of infectious and metabolic diseases, typically moving from target selection to clinical trials in less than 18 months. Included in this pipeline are drugs that target both protein-encoding mRNAs as well as microRNAs, a recently discovered class of non-coding, regulatory RNAs that are increasingly considered attractive therapeutic targets. Santaris made medical history in 2008 when it advanced the world's first microRNA drug, SPC3649, into clinical trials.

Parallel to its in-house activities, Santaris Pharma A/S has leveraged its Drug Discovery Engine through four major partnerships with pharmaceutical companies to design and identify potent lead candidates against a collection of partner selected targets in a multitude of disease areas, ranging from cancer and inflammatory diseases to rare genetic disorders.

To date, in-house and partner activities have advanced four different LNA-based drugs into clinical trials. In total, these trials have enrolled and treated hundreds of patients and healthy volunteers, some of whom have received treatment for more than six months. Efficacy and safety data from these trials, combined with toxicology and efficacy data on additional drug candidates set to enter clinical trials in 2010, further consolidates the leading position of LNA-based drugs in the antisense field and the role of Santaris Pharma A/S as the partner of-choice for companies interested in entering the promising field of RNA-targeted therapeutics.

Santaris Pharma A/S has substantive intellectual property coverage that includes ownership of more than 53 patent families which cover the LNA chemistry, manufacturing, therapeutic uses in patients and animals and optimal drug designs and drug formats.