Biotica Technology
www.biotica.comBiotica Technology Limited is a privately held biotech focused on the discovery of novel polyketide pharmaceuticals through the targeted alteration of polyketide biosynthetic pathways.
Its proprietary synthetic biology platforms enable both the specific and combinatorial biosynthesis of bioactive polyketides. Polyketides are a diverse class of natural products that have been a prolific source of commercially significant pharmaceuticals, currently representing worldwide sales in excess of $20 billion a year.
The Company applies its technology platform to discover polyketides that are potentially useful therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases.
Biotica was established in 1996 by Professors Peter Leadlay FRS and Jim Staunton FRS, together with the University of Cambridge, as a vehicle for industrial research collaborations to exploit commercially their work on polyketide genetic engineering, in the first instance through a research collaboration with Pfizer Inc, focused on the application of the technology in the generation of novel erythromycins.
In September 1999, with the addition of a second substantial industrial research collaboration with Dow AgroSciences, aimed at the generation of novel analogues of its spinosad insecticide, Biotica was transformed from a paper company embedded within the University research group into a fully fledged spin-out with the establishment of separate research laboratories and staff.
The Company has a well-positioned and promising in-house drug discovery portfolio that includes polyketide mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors, 90 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp90) inhibitors and novel angiogenesis inhibitors, all clinically validated approaches for the development of novel anticancer therapeutics.
Furthermore these anticancer targets represent opportunities unique to polyketides, some of which are inaccessible with conventional small molecules. For example, the polyketide rapamycin and analogues are the only established mTOR inhibitors known to date.
Staff
Contact details
Little Chesterford
Nr Saffron Walden
Essex
CB10 1XL
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1799 532936
Fax: +44 (0)1799 532932
