Norak Biosciences Inc has signed a screening services agreement with Purdue Pharma L.P. to utilize Transfluor technology for G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) based drug discovery.

Under the terms of the agreement Norak will develop Transfluor cell lines expressing an orphan GPCR target of interest to Purdue and then screen this cell line in its high throughput screening facility against a Purdue compound library, the company release says.

"This important collaboration further validates the importance of Norak's Transfluor technology in orphan GPCR-based drug discovery," stated Dr. Roger D. Blevins, Norak's president and CEO. "Orphan GPCRs represent the next generation of blockbuster drugs but screening these receptors with traditional GPCR assay technologies has proven very challenging. Transfluor is ideally suited to screen orphan GPCRs because no prior knowledge of the receptor's signalling pathway is required," he added.

"Access to the Norak's technology provides Purdue Pharma's Discovery Research with an important edge to increase productivity and an alternative process to be more competitive in drug discovery," said Dr. Tagé Honore, Purdue's VP of Discovery Research.

For near-term growth and revenue, Norak is offering access to its Transfluor technology to the pharmaceutical industry via licensing and collaborations. For long-term growth and value, Norak has acquired compound libraries and high throughput screening instrumentation to discover certain GPCR-based drugs for its own drug discovery pipeline.

Norak's Transfluor technology is a patented, universal GPCR drug discovery technology designed to be the most direct and accurate method for screening potential drug candidates against GPCR targets, whether known or orphan. Transfluor was licensed in 1999 by Norak from technology developed at Duke University Medical School, the release added.