Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC) and the biotech company UGISense AG are about to initiate a collaboration to jointly develop innovative drugs using the proprietary Ugimeres antisense platform. Additionally, LDC will acquire a minority stake in UGISense AG during a first 1.2 million Euros financing round involving several private investors. The partnership aims at combining the potential of the innovative Ugimeres antisense platform with LDC's drug discovery expertise and target know-how to maximize synergies and jointly commercialize successful projects.

"We see the Ugimeres platform as a highly exciting addition to our own in-house drug discovery technologies. We believe that the drug class of peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) offers enormous potential especially in the innovative field of microRNAs and for so far ‘undruggable’ targets", says Dr. Bert Klebl, CEO of the LDC. "We look forward to working closely with the UGISense team and to jointly advance our first pilot projects".

"We are very excited about the successful financing of UGISense AG and welcome our new partner LDC. This partnership will allow us to focus closely on the high-quality development and commercialization of Ugimeres as innovative drugs for targets with high unmet medical need", says Dr. Thomas Lindhorst of UGISense AG's executive board.

Ugimeres are short oligonucleotide sequences capable of interacting with single-stranded DNA or RNA by forming a double strand. Thanks to said double-strand formation, disease-relevant proteins will be specifically prevented from forming altogether or will be reduced to only a modified stage. This makes it possible to therapeutically influence the development of diseases at a very early stage of intervention. Structurally, Ugimeres are derived from peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) to which important pharmacological functions have been added by way of chemical modifications.