Scynexis, a Durham drug discovery and development company, has signed an agreement with a nonprofit group to find new compounds that are potentially effective against malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Financial details of the deal announced Tuesday with the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, a public-private partnership based in the United Kingdom, weren't disclosed.
"We are very excited about this whole area of global health," said Terry Marquardt, executive director of market development and communications at Scynexis, which has 130 employees. "It's hard to ignore the tremendous need out there."
Last month Scynexis and two organizations it collaborated with, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and Anacor Pharmaceuticals, announced that their novel compound for treating sleeping sickness was ready to advance to Phase I clinical trials.
Under the deal announced Tuesday, Scynexis will develop an automated system to screen compounds for signs that they would make effective insecticides to combat mosquitoes. It will screen its chemical library of more than 75,000 compounds as well as compounds that Innovative Vector Control obtains elsewhere.
Although there are insecticides that are effective against mosquitoes today, mosquitoes are developing resistance against them.
"The idea is to develop insecticides that are different enough from existing insecticides so that cross-resistance would not be a big factor," Marquardt said.
Founded in 2000, Scynexis has raised about $50 million in venture capital funding.
