Optibrium and AstraZeneca Sign Agreement for Global License of StarDrop

Optibrium, a developer of software for drug discovery, today announced that AstraZeneca has signed an agreement to license Optibrium’s StarDrop™ software. The agreement will see the global deployment of StarDrop and the ADME-QSAR and Auto-Modeller™ modules to AstraZeneca’s researchers.

StarDrop is a software suite that helps to deliver optimally balanced, effective drugs. By quickly highlighting diverse, high-quality compounds, StarDrop dramatically reduces the time it takes to find effective leads and then transform them into candidate drugs, which will have a high probability of success downstream. StarDrop works by evaluating complex data, which is often uncertain because of experimental variability or predictive error. In scoring this data, the software brings confidence and intuitive simplicity to decision-making: guiding and validating the direction of research projects and which compounds are prioritised. Its instantly interactive tools then enable researchers to efficiently explore ways to further improve their chemistries. StarDrop’s ADME QSAR plug in module enables the prediction of a broad range of ADME and physicochemical properties using a suite of high-quality QSAR models. The Auto-Modeller module gives novice and expert users alike access to the tools needed to produce validated, predictive models of their own chemistry and data.

Dr Matthew Segall, Optibrium’s CEO, commented, “We are delighted that AstraZeneca has selected StarDrop to help guide their global drug discovery research efforts and we look forward to collaborating with their scientists to integrate our unique technology with their in-house infrastructure.”

Dr Nicholas Tomkinson, AstraZeneca Informatics, commented. “StarDrop’s unique approach to multi-parameter optimisation and intuitive user interface complement our in-house efforts in this area, and enable our interdisciplinary design teams to target compounds with a balance of properties required for their project objectives”. Dr Patrick Barton, AstraZeneca DMPK, added, “Drug metabolism, together with the prediction of human kinetics and dose, is a multi-objective optimisation problem. We seek a compromise between potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetic and toxicological profiles to discover a safe and efficacious drug. Currently, we undertake an empirical approach to optimisation which relies on experience and often leads to inconsistent decision-making. The introduction of StarDrop will improve objective decision making and decrease the timelines of our projects.”

For further information on Optibrium and StarDrop, please visit www.optibrium.com, contact info@optibrium.com or call +44 1223 815900.