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News and Events > News Release
Contact: Lindsay Polak
Technology Transfer Office
University of Colorado
(303) 735-5518
lindsay.polak@cu.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (October 8, 2008)
BIORELIX, INC LICENSES UNIV. OF COLORADO RIBOSWITCH TECHNOLOGY
RNA technology will be used to develop treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections.
Boulder, CO) The University of Colorado recently executed an exclusive license with BioRelix, Inc. for riboswitch technology developed by Robert Batey in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at CU-Boulder. BioRelix, founded in 2005 and based in New Haven, CT, was established to discover and develop novel and highly potent anti-infective compounds against pathogens resistant to currently available drugs.
Antibiotics have long been recognized as reliable drugs which have largely overcome the lethal and devastating effects of bacterial infections. However, all known classes of antibiotics are increasingly encountering wide-spread resistance by many prevalent bacterial pathogens; in fact, about 70 percent of bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are resistant to at least one of the drugs most commonly used to treat infections. Unless antibiotic resistance problems are detected as they emerge, and actions are taken to contain them, the world could be faced with previously treatable diseases that have again become untreatable, as in the days before antibiotics were developed.
Riboswitches are short stretches of messenger RNAs that bind small metabolites and control genes required for the survival of many disease-causing bacteria. Therefore, novel riboswitch technology may be used to defeat bacterial resistance to currently available antibiotics. BioRelix previously licensed jointly owned University of Colorado – Yale University riboswitch technology through a license with Yale, as well as another University of Colorado owned riboswitch technology. “We look forward to continuing a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with BioRelix,” declared Mary Tapolsky, Senior Licensing Associate with the University of Colorado’s Technology Transfer Office.
About the CU Technology Transfer Office
The CU Technology Transfer Office pursues, protects, packages, and licenses to business the intellectual property generated from research at CU. The TTO provides assistance to faculty, staff, and students, as well as to businesses looking to license or invest in CU technology. For more information about technology transfer at CU, visit www.cu.edu/techtransfer.
About the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado is a three-campus system with campuses in Boulder and Colorado Springs, and a Denver campus located in downtown Denver and at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. CU is a premier teaching and research university, ranked sixth among public institutions in federal research expenditures by the National Science Foundation. Academic prestige is marked by CU’s four Nobel laureates, seven Mac Arthur “genius” Fellows, 18 astronauts, 19 Rhodes Scholars and CU-Boulder’s ranking of 11th best public university in the world by the Institute for Higher Education. For further information, please visit http://www.cu.edu.
About BioRelix.
BioRelix, Inc. is a drug discovery and development company focused on identifying new anti-infective drug treatments. BioRelix is building a portfolio of anti-infective products based on novel patented RNA targets, termed riboswitches, which were identified in the laboratory of BioRelix co-founder, Ronald Breaker Ph.D., Howard Hughes Investigator and Henry Ford II Professor at Yale University. For more information about BioRelix, please visit www.biorelix.com.
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