XenoPort, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, announced the establishment of research collaboration with Pfizer Inc. The collaboration will focus on developing technologies that improve access of drugs to targets in the brain by exploiting active transport mechanisms in the cells that form the blood brain barrier. In the multi-year research partnership, XenoPort will contribute aspects of its Engineered Drug Transport technologies to identify and characterize important absorption and efflux transporters in the central nervous system (CNS). Pfizer will contribute its expertise to the collaboration in addition to research funding. The programme will develop empirical tools and methodologies to aid in the design of CNS drugs with efficient brain absorption. Both companies will share the use of technologies developed in the programme.

"We are very excited to be working with Pfizer on this programme," said William Dower, PhD, vice president discovery biology. "XenoPort has successfully demonstrated that drug molecules can be engineered to utilize nutrient transporters in the intestine to improve absorption. Because similar transporters play an important role in the absorption of nutrients into the brain, we are also applying this approach to enhance the penetration of therapeutic compounds into the CNS. By combining our Engineered Drug Transport technology with the expertise that Pfizer brings in CNS drug discovery, we believe we can accelerate the development of new CNS therapeutics."