Simulations Plus, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLP), the leading provider of simulation and modeling software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, announced today that it has signed a collaboration agreement with a top-three pharmaceutical company to extend and enhance its prototype ocular drug delivery module within its GastroPlus™ simulation software program.
Dr. John Crison, director of life sciences for Simulations Plus, said: “We’re very pleased that this collaboration will support the further enhancement of GastroPlus. As a result of discussions over the past couple of months, our customer offered to fund a collaboration at a level of one full-time equivalent (FTE) for one year to take our prototype capability to the next level. Simulations Plus will provide programming and scientific expertise and the customer will provide data and scientific expertise to enable us together to ensure that the ocular delivery module within GastroPlus is the most advanced such capability in the industry.”
Walt Woltosz, chairman and chief executive officer of Simulations Plus, added: “The delivery of drugs to the eye by various routes is complex. This customer clearly recognizes the value of simulation and modeling in the development process. In fact, this customer was one of the first companies to license GastroPlus back in 1998, and we’ve enjoyed the excellent working relationship we’ve had with their scientists over the years. A number of significant changes to both GastroPlus and our ADMET Predictor™ software have come from requests from their scientists. Our team is excited about this new opportunity to produce an advanced ocular drug delivery simulation capability as yet another extension of the capabilities of GastroPlus. As with all of our developments of this type, Simulations Plus will own the intellectual property within the software, while the customer will own the intellectual property in their data and any resulting new discoveries made from their data. Thus, the capability we had already begun developing will be improved and will also be available to other companies when it is released. The forward-thinking attitude on the part of this customer and our other collaborators that allow sharing of new simulation technologies based on their data is evidence of the spirit of ‘cooperation wherever possible’ among pharmaceutical companies in the search for new medicines.”