London, UK – 9 December 2008:
Bio Nano Consulting (BNC), the specialist bionanotechnology product development consultancy, announced at Genesis 2008 in London that it has just completed its second major project for US-based pharmaceutical company, Targanta Therapeutics Corporation. BNC has used its position as world-leaders in cantilever-array assay systems to analyse in greater detail the mechanism of action of Targanta’s lead antibiotic, oritavancin, a novel lipoglycopeptide antibiotic.
Targanta Therapeutics is developing oritavancin for the treatment of serious grampositive bacterial infections, including complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI), and bacteremia, a blood stream infection. The two projects with Targanta Therapeutics have built on the BNC’s experience with other antibiotics, including recent research into the workings of vancomycin published in Nature Nanotechnology (November 2008) by scientists working with BNC. Vancomycin is one of the few marketed antibiotics that can be used to combat increasingly resistant infections such as MRSA.
Dr David Sarphie, CEO of the Bio Nano Consulting said, “We are really pleased to have been involved in these two projects to assist Targanta in advancing their understanding of the mechanism of action of this new antibiotic drug candidate. This further establishes the BNC’s reputation both in the antibiotic field, and as a leader in applying cantilever-array technology to assess drug-target interactions. It also demonstrates the important role that BNC is playing in the rapidly expanding bionanotechnology sector.”
Editors’ notes
About Bio Nano Consulting
The BNC is a specialist research and development consultancy operating in the convergent field of bionanotechnology. A joint venture of Imperial College London and University College London, the BNC is funded through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) with additional support from the London Development Agency (LDA).
Along with its partner organisation, the National Physical Laboratory, the BNC offers a service to the biomedical and healthcare industries in microsystems and nanotechnology. This encompasses design, 3-D modelling and visualisation, rapid prototyping, and characterisation.