GVK Bio licenses database to USFDA for drug repositioning

Hyderabad-based drug R&D and clinical research company, GVK Biosciences Private Limited, today said that it had licensed its database to the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for a collaboration in drug repositioning.

“The material transfer agreement forms the basis of collaboration in drug repositioning, wherein the initial focus will be to identify alternative therapeutic indications of marketed compounds for neglected and orphan diseases,” the company said in a statement.  The company said it had developed a proprietary ‘drug repositioning platform’ with eight different approaches to address the drug repurposing challenge. The platform will use data from GVK Bio’s proprietary databases such as SAR databases (GOSTAR) and Biomarker database (GOBIOM).

Sreeni Devidas, vice-president (business development) of GVK Bio said that the collaboration with the USFDA was a validation of the utility of GOSTAR in multiple applications.

“Specifically, the ROI (return on investment) generated by the use in drug repositioning is unparalleled. GVK Bio will work with the USFDA to further enhance the repositioning and repurposing work flow and make it available to the entire research community,” he said.

GOSTAR, a manually-curated database containing over 6.5 million compounds, was developed over a span of a decade by a team of over 200 scientists. It is being  used globally by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as academia, according to the company.

GVK Bio is a  research and development organisation providing a broad spectrum of services including clinical research, process R&D to drug firms.

Drug repositioning is gaining traction in the industry and academia and is becoming a mandatory component of the drug development process, said Manni Kantipudi, chief executive officer of GVK Bio.

“We look forward to continue working and collaborating with the FDA with a view to further enhancing the utility of the product (GOSTAR),” he added.