Redx and NHS Trust team up to tackle MRSA
AMBITIOUS biotech company Redx Pharma has announced a significant collaborative research project to tackle MRSA in its home city of Liverpool.
The company’s scientists will be working with the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust to develop new drugs to combat the growing threat of anti-biotic resistance.
The link-up is said to be one of the first commercial agreements to deliver on a stated aim of NHS England to develop more partnerships with industry.
No financial value has been placed on the deal, which runs until September 2016. Redx will provide discovery and development expertise across its bases in Liverpool and Alderley Park, Cheshire, while the Royal is to utilise its extensive clinical development capabilities.
Drug candidates from Redx’s technology platform are to be tested in humans at the the Covance-Royal Liverpool University Hospital Clinical Research Unit. Upon securing clinical proof of concept, Redx will undertake licensing activities aimed at securing a third-party development and commercialisation partner. The Royal and Redx will share the costs and financial benefits.
The program focuses on therapies to tackle drug-resistant bacteria, including MRSA.
Dr Neil Murray, chief executive of Redx Pharma, said: “Our business is at the cutting edge of early stage drug development and, working with our colleagues at the Royal, we are delighted to be now in the vanguard of NHS England’s strategy of fostering closer working ties with industry.
“At Redx, we believe in collaboration and are confident that this smarter way of working with our NHS colleagues can help deliver significant patient benefits, alongside worthwhile commercial revenues for the project partners. Working together we can achieve more than the sum of our parts.”
Professor Robert Sutton, director of research, development and innovation at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust said: “This is an exciting development in the fight against MRSA that has the potential to save lives around the world. We have a successful track record in the field of experimental medicine and are unique in the UK in our investment in clinical pharmacology along with our position in the local health and life science industry.
“We have worked closely with Redx Pharma for many years and this partnership is delivering ground breaking research that benefit local people in Liverpool and patient groups around the world.”
