TCG Lifesciences Limited (TCGLS) recently announced the achievement of two distinct milestones in their ongoing drug discovery partnership with Endo Pharmaceuticals. The company will receive undisclosed success fees against these milestones soon.

In the first of two fully integrated discovery programs with Endo aimed at identifying novel small molecule drug candidates for an unmet medical need, TCGLS has successfully delivered a pre-clinical development candidate. Both partners contributed to the discovery program’s architecture, including biological and in-vivo assay design, screening decision tree and medicinal chemistry design.

Working closely with Endo scientists, the TCGLS collaboration team members conducted all aspects of laboratory research for the program involving medicinal chemistry, in vitro biology, ADME, animal pharmacology and early toxicology capabilities. Two lead molecules resulting from this collaboration have been selected by Endo for cGMP manufacturing and GLP-toxicology studies.

In the second of two fully integrated discovery programmes with Endo, initiated in 2011, TCGLS has also achieved a discovery milestone. Under this programme, TCGLS has designed and delivered novel fast-follower hit structures well within collaboration timelines. This multi-year, three-stage project aims to identify potent in-vivo active novel blockers of an undisclosed target for eventual clinical development.

Commenting on these developments, Swapan Bhattacharya, managing director, TCG Lifesciences, said, “These successes demonstrate the progress TCGLS has made in driving innovation and the commitment of TCGLS scientists to collaborate with partners to deliver novel molecules.”

According to Dr Sandeep Gupta, senior vice president, discovery and early development, research and development at Endo Pharmaceuticals, “This is a proud moment for the Endo-TCGLS collaboration as the achievement of these milestones is a testimony to the great team effort and a strong collaborative spirit demonstrated by both sides. We look forward to achieving many more milestones in our programmes and to developing novel treatment options for the benefit of patients.”

TCGLS is a leading contract research services, clinical research, and laboratory informatics company with operations in India, Europe, Japan, Australia and the US. It is part of The Chatterjee Group, a global investment conglomerate headquartered in New York. TCGLS collaborates to service the multi-disciplinary research efforts of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies through its three units: Chembiotek (Discovery Research), Clininvent (Clinical Research Solutions), and LabVantage (Enterprise Informatics).