Toronto, ON, November 23, 2021– Dalriada Drug Discovery is pleased to announce that it has signed an important new drug development agreement with Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies Holdings plc (“OCTP”) the holding company of Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies Ltd (“OCT”, together, the “Group”), a company developing licensed prescription cannabinoid medicines for approval by regulatory agencies worldwide and targeting the U$ multi-billion pain market.
Dalriada will provide R&D activities on compounds OCT accessed as part of its exclusive, worldwide licence agreement signed with Canopy, announced on 22 September 2021. OCT’s exclusive license includes Canopy’s entire cannabinoid derivative library, including 335 derivatives, intellectual property rights including 14 patent families, and associated product research and development.
Dalriada contributed to the design, manufacturing, and experimental evaluation of all the compounds in the Canopy library. Dalriada will build on its existing knowledge and experience as it continues research aimed at identifying multiple drug candidates targeting indications in pain, neurology, inflammation and oncology. A goal of the collaboration is the selection of two drug candidates ready for pre-clinical development by the end of 2022.
OCTP Chief Executive, Dr John Lucas, on the Dalriada Agreement “Whilst our main focus remains pain therapy, the collaboration with Dalriada, in synergy with the strategic collaborations recently announced, will enable us to expand and differentiate our efforts into other therapeutic areas including neurology, oncology and inflammation. Working with the team that helped Canopy to develop its library is hugely exciting for OCT and will help us get the very best out of that important acquisition.”
Dalriada Chief Executive and co-founder, Diana Kraskouskaya said of the partnership with Oxford “Dalriada looks forward to supporting OCT advance the cannabinoid derivative library we helped discover. Targeting the endogenous cannabinoid system with small molecules holds significant promise in delivering improved therapies and over the years, we have significantly invested in building our expertise and infrastructure in this pharmacology as well as our work with controlled substances. Together we are well equipped to rapidly advance OCT’s pipeline through hit-to-lead and lead optimization.”
Dalriada is not a traditional CRO:
Dalriada is a leading Canadian contract research organization specialized in small molecule therapies. Purposely built as an agile, co-located and uniquely integrated drug discovery partner, Dalriada accelerates the discovery and development journey of high value new small molecule therapeutics from concept to PDC. Our partners have access to and support from a team of more than 60 drug discovery scientists (>70% PhD) specialized across all aspects of medicinal & computational chemistry, cell & molecular biology, biophysics & biochemistry, ADME and proteomics. Our unique Turn-Key™ operational model offers the global biotechnology industry a full suite of drug discovery, preclinical development, intellectual property, and business expertise to manage and execute tailored R&D programs. To date Dalriada has supported integrated programs of public andventure capital-backed companies, including Antibe, Janpix, Canopy Growth and Dunad Therapeutics.