Date: Feb 17, 2009 Author: press release Source: UC Denver (
click here to go to the source)
DENVER (Feb. 17, 2009) - BioAMPS International, LLC and the University of Colorado today announced that BioAMPS has secured an exclusive license for a family of antimicrobial peptides created by two University of Colorado Denver researchers in collaboration with researchers at the University of British Columbia. These peptides will be used to develop improved treatments for common, potentially lethal drug-resistant bacterial infections.
Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics that have been shown to kill bacteria resistant to conventional antibiotics without inducing further drug resistance. The compounds developed at CU have been engineered to eliminate some known toxicities of previously developed antimicrobial peptides, and have also been recently shown to be effective against tuberculosis and fungi species (Chemical Biology & Drug Design, December 2008). BioAMPS International, based at Aurora's Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons, intends to develop antimicrobial peptides to treat drug-resistant gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria associated with both community-acquired and hospital-acquired infections. "We are pleased to secure commercialization rights to this unique, potential solution to the global problem of antibiotic resistance," said David A. DeLong, BioAMPS' chief executive officer.
The company will also receive a $100,000 Proof of Concept Investment (POCi) from the CU Technology Transfer Office. CU's POCi investments are designed to help move promising CU technology closer to becoming commercial products. "We are hopeful about the potential of this technology to provide an important alternative to existing antibiotic drugs, and the POCi funding is a vote of confidence in that regard," commented Tom Smerdon, Director of Licensing and New Business Development in the CU Technology Transfer Office. "The CU proof of concept investment provides critical development funding and further validates our business model and technology," added DeLong.
About BioAMPS International
BioAMPs International, LLC is a Colorado-based biotechnology company that discovers and develops proprietary, structurally-guided antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) for the treatment of systemic bacteria infections resistant to conventional antibiotic therapy. Our de novo AMPs are designed to target bacterial cell membranes through a unique mechanism of action while sparing human blood and tissue cells and circumventing the known routes of drug resistance experienced by traditional antibiotics.
About the Technology Transfer Office
The CU Technology Transfer Office pursues, protects, packages, and licenses to business the intellectual property generated from research at CU. The TTO provides assistance to faculty, staff, and students, as well as to businesses looking to license or invest in CU technology. For more information about technology transfer at CU, visit www.cu.edu/techtransfer.
About the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado is a three-campus system with four locations: the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the University of Colorado Denver's downtown Denver campus and Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. Nearly 54,000 undergraduate and graduate students are pursuing academic opportunities on CU campuses. CU is a premier teaching and research university, and is ranked sixth among public institutions in federal research expenditures by the National Science Foundation. Academic prestige is marked by the university's four Nobel laureates, seven MacArthur "genius" Fellows, 18 alumni astronauts and 19 Rhodes Scholars. For more information about all of the CU campuses, go to www.cu.edu.
###
Contact: Lindsay Polak, University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office, (303) 735-5518, lindsay.polak@cu.edu
