www.asterand.com
Asterand plc is the leading global supplier of high quality, well characterized human tissue and human tissue-based research services to drug discovery scientists. Their mission is to provide human tissues and services to accelerate the identification and validation of drug targets and enhance the selection of drug candidates with an increased likelihood of clinical success.
Asterand subsidiary achieves “research milestone” with Japanese partner
Human tissue specialist Asterand (LON:ATD) announced today that its BioSeek subsidiary has achieved a “research milestone” in its drug discovery collaboration with Japanese pharmaceutical firm Ono Pharmaceutical.
BioSeek is applying its BioMAP platform to perform a number of tasks on a drug discovery target selected by Ono. These tasks include phenotypic screening, hit identification, lead optimisation and clinical candidate selection.
Under the three-year agreement with Ono, BioSeek is receiving research funding and is eligible to receive success payments based on the research-phase progress of this collaboration and further milestone payments based on the clinical development-phase progress of a drug candidate discovered under this collaboration. Ono will have worldwide rights to develop and sell all pharmaceutical products discovered through the collaboration.
“We highly value our relationship with Ono since it enables us to take full advantage of BioMAP'’s power to discover and develop innovative new drug candidates,” said Jack Davis, Asterand’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We are looking forward to the successful continuation and further achievements of the collaboration.”
Asterand is a supplier of high-quality human tissue and tissue-based services. It takes a “comprehensive approach” to human tissue and associated research services, which it says offers pharmaceutical, biotech and diagnostic companies a “unique opportunity” to have one company meet all of their human biomaterial needs.



















