Chemizon-Oakwood Bioventures to Fund NewCo

An agreement was reached with Longmont-based Chemizon and the Korean Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) to spin out a new biotech company designed to commercialize KRIBB’s intellectual property assets with an emphasis on technologies targeting the discovery of drugs that address unmet medical needs. The deal is led by Chemizon-Oakwood Bioventures private equity fund. Chemizon will collaborate with the TBD new biotech company and aid in the conversion of its discoveries into small molecule therapeutics.

The Korean Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology is Korea’s largest government funded biology-focused research institute and is dedicated to basic biotechnology research spanning a broad range of interests including studies for the fundamental understanding of life threatening diseases, novel biomaterials, bioinformatics and drug discovery.

Note to self: Obtain a better understanding who/what/where of Chemizon-Oakwood Bioventures

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Chemizon: CO Drug Discovery Platform

If Chemizon had not been on your radar well consider yourself now in the loop…if you have been looking for a local drug discovery platform then look no further than Longmont’s Chemizon. Back in 2006 Tony Piscopio, Ph.D. who co-founded Array Biopharma (NASDAQ: ARRY) departed to found Chemizon.

Chemizon is a provider of drug discovery and development capabilities to the pharmaceutical industry combining a vertically integrated discovery platform with a flexible, collaborative business model to develop best-in-class clinical candidates. Expertise spans a broad range of therapeutic areas and target classes. Stand alone services available include: lead optimization, library design and synthesis, custom synthesis, radiolabeling, ADME profiling, analytical method development and process chemistry.

A sophisticated merger took place in 1H07 whereby Chemizon and Optomagic, a Korean optical communication and cable company, merged and simultaneous to that was an agreement to sell the business unit of Optomagic to Taihan Electric, also based in Korea. Subsequently significant hard and soft assets of Chemizon are found in Seoul, South Korea and more recently a third research facility was opened in Beijing, China. How about that for a Colorado reach into Asia?

A number of deals and collaborations have been announced with the likes of Crystal Genomics, Takeda Pharmaceutical and most recently with Array Biopharma to provide various medicinal chemistry services.

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