Medivir announces research partnership with GVK Bio

Swedish pharma major seeks to focus on its core areas of oncology and infectious diseases within the discovery research department

Swedish pharmaceutical company Medivir has announced a partnership with Hyderabad-based contract research firm GVK Biosciences Private Limited (GVK Bio) as it seeks to focus its core areas of oncology and infectious diseases within the discovery research department.

The partnership will consolidate and strengthen all current out-sourced synthetic chemistry in a single facility at GVK BIO’s Integrated Discovery Research Campus, where an addition of approximately 20 scientific staff will further accelerate the synthesis and testing of compounds, according to Medivir.

“This reorganisation and resource optimisation will improve efficiency and enhance our ability to deliver well-differentiated candidate drugs into our development pipeline while over time reducing overall research costs and improving cost flexibility, and we look forward to a productive partnership with our colleagues at GVK BIO,” Medivir CEO Niklas Prager said in a statement.

"We are excited about GVK BIO's partnership with Medivir. Medivir chose GVK Bio over several other CROs on the basis of its scientific strength and its ability to perform Integrated Research with Chemistry and Biology. We look forward to delivering significant value to Medivir shareholders and to a productive partnership" said GVK Bio CEO Manni Kantipudi.

GVK Bio was in the dock over data integrity issues raised by European Medicines Agency late last year.