1. OPTIVIA BIOTECHNOLOGY AND RHENOVIA PHARMA
SIGN A PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
Companies agree to partner to expand product and service offerings for better
understanding drug’s effects in brain.
MENLO PARK, CA, MULHOUSE, FRANCE, CAMBRIDGE, MA – May 19th, 2015 - Optivia Biotechnology, the
leading provider of high quality transporter assay services for Drug-Drug Interactions (DDI), Metabolism
and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK), Safety and Pharmacology, and Rhenovia Pharma, a world leader in
assessing impact of drugs and mutations on neurotransmission using Translational Quantitative Systems
Pharmacology supported by biosimulation, announced today that they have signed a partnership
agreement.
The agreement allows both companies to expand their product and service offerings. The partnership
will combine the use of Optivia’s Opti-CNS™ neuronal transporter profiling services with Rhenovia’s
RHENOMS™ Nervous System (NS) Biosimulation Platform to improve data interpretation and gain a
deeper understanding of the therapeutic and adverse effects of drugs in the brain.
Optivia’s President and CEO, Yong Huang, Ph.D., expressed his enthusiasm about the partnership. “Our
focus is always to provide scientists with the right tools for the question at hand. Funded by two
research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the US FDA, we are creating
the largest database of interactions between drugs and neurotransmitter transporters that play critical
roles in CNS (patho)physiology. Rhenovia’s biosimulation platform, which focuses on the nervous system
in its entirety, adds significant value to that endeavor by enabling the development of a clearer picture
on how such interactions lead to therapeutic or adverse effects in complex and intricate
neurotransmission networks.”
“We are delighted to join our efforts with those of Optivia in providing our respective customers and
partners this very unique service offering,” said Rhenovia’s President, Serge Bischoff, PhD. “The
partnership enables our customers to screen drug candidates and active ingredients in Optivia’s broad
transporter portfolio and profile hits and leads in Rhenovia’s biosimulators of nervous system functions
and pathologies.”
2. The combination of the technologies allows Optivia’s and Rhenovia’s customers to better understand
the mechanism of action and potential for adverse events in the complicated field of CNS drug
development. “
About Optivia
Since bringing the first full panel of FDA- and EMA- compliant transporter drug-drug interaction (DDI)
assays to market, Optivia has been the leading provider of high-quality transporter assay services.
Optivia is a thought leader in expanding the utility of transporter research in areas as diverse as
pharmacokinetics, toxicology, therapeutic target discovery, and basic biology research. With the world’s
largest portfolio of transporter assays, novel multi-transporter models, and customized molecular
transport research solutions, Optivia is committed to understanding the complex drug transport
processes for improving drug safety and efficacy. For more information, visit www.optiviabio.com.
About Rhenovia Pharma
Rhenovia Pharma SAS is a healthcare company founded in 2007 by an international team comprising
executives from the pharmaceutical industry and world experts in neuroscience and computational
modeling. The company specializes in biosimulation of the nervous system, a field in which it became
the acknowledged world leader in less than 5 years. Rhenovia creates computer simulators, which
replicate various features of the nervous system in healthy human, or pathological conditions
(Alzheimer, Parkinson, epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, etc.). These in silico simulators allow to predict
the efficacy and toxicity of molecules or combinations of molecules without going through in vitro/in vivo
laboratory experimentations. Rhenovia’s main fields of application are drug discovery, agri-food, as well
as civil security and defense.
For more information, visit http://www.rhenovia.com/.
About Transporter Proteins
Transporters are a class of 300 to 400 membrane proteins that act as nature’s “gatekeepers,”
facilitating the movement of drugs, nutrients, and other bioactive molecules into and out of cells.
Through modulating drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) in the body,
transporters play a vital role in drug response and safety, as testified by global regulatory requests on
testing transporter mediated DDIs for preventing dangerous adverse drug events. Moreover,
transporters can be therapeutic targets for various diseases such as Central Nervous System (CNS)
disorders, cancer, and diabetes.
For more information please contact:
For Optivia
Dawn Stricker
Executive Director, Business Development
+1 619.213.3823
dstricker@optiviabio.com
For Rhenovia
