It’s a tale as old as time: Drug development can be a slow, expensive and laborious task and, more often than not, yields failure.

Following a long line of contract research organizations and biopharma services providers, San Diego’s Eurofins Discovery and Shanghai-based PharmaResources are joining forces to try to combat these issues.

Their new focus is on speed and efficiency, combining resources to help life science clients boost their drug discovery timelines.

How? The pair said in a statement that they have penned “commercial cooperation” that seeks to give PharmaResources’ customers (which tap the CRO’s small-molecule drug R&D and manufacturing capacity) “expedited access” to Eurofins Discovery’s pharmacology and absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (aka ADMET) portfolio.

“PharmaResources’ 300 chemists and 30+ drug discovery programs will be able to provide their customers within vitro pharmacology and ADME assessments, which enables earlier and faster access to safety and efficacy data through a single integrated platform,” the two companies said.

The cooperation pact should speed things along, they argue, as it improves R&D efficiency; medicinal chemists at PharmaResources will have “rapid access” to pharmacology and ADMET data via the deal. Any financial terms were not disclosed.

“Our commitment to reducing the time and cost of drug discovery to worldwide pharmaceutical clients, and especially those in China, is enriched through Eurofins Discovery’s biology platforms with the discovery chemistry platform of PharmaResources,” said Christina Shasserre, senior vice president of Eurofins Discovery.

“PharmaResources is an internationally recognized leader in medicinal and process chemistry with outstanding track records in early drug discovery and shares our vision of reducing the time it takes to generate safe and efficacious therapies for drug developers.”

Ping Chen, Ph.D., founder, and CEO of PharmaResources, added: “Eurofins Discovery provides high-quality expertise in discovery biology with a broad spectrum of biological assays and ADMET, with a robust in vitro pharmacology platform. Through this cooperation, we are combining the strengths of both companies and are establishing a small molecule drug discovery service platform in a virtual integrated fashion.

“Several on-going discovery programs have already shown the benefit from this cooperation and we believe that this platform will provide rapid, high-quality services to clients and facilitate their research on novel small molecule drugs in a synergistic way.”

Source: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/cro/eurofins-discovery-teams-up-china-cro-pharmaresources-for-speedy-drug-discovery