Aquapharm Biodiscovery, a marine biotechnology company, has signed a research agreement with Albany Molecular Research (AMRI) to identify novel drug-like compounds and scaffolds with anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory activity from Aquapharm’s collection of marine microorganisms.

AMRI will screen Aquapharm’s library against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria and an undisclosed anti-inflammatory target, and will isolate and elucidate the structures of novel hits. Aquapharm retains all rights to compounds resulting from the collaboration.

Aquapharm chief executive officer Simon Best said, “We are confident that this collaboration will exploit the novelty, diversity and drug-like characteristics of the compounds which we know from pilot studies are abundantly produced by marine micro-organisms. These represent a virtually untapped source of compounds and scaffolds with many attractive characteristics to form the basis of numerous drug-discovery partnerships.”

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