Cellworks Group Inc. forays into India through R & D centre in Bangalore

Bangalore, November 15, 2007: Cellworks Group Inc, a California based company, has set up its R&D centre in Bangalore, India. Cellworks Research India Limited (CRIL), the R & D centre of Cellworks, would develop and provide technology based solutions that hasten drug discovery research and development. CRIL’s new facility in Bangalore is STPI approved and has the necessary infrastructure to house 110 scientists.

CRIL’s research focus would be in the areas of oncology, inflammation, metabolic disorders, CNS and Skin. This research based on the Systems Biology approach involves development of in silico platforms of disease physiology at the metabolic and bio-chemical pathway level. This approach enables drug discovery teams to use these platforms as a virtual experimental system. Thus the drug discovery teams would have the benefit of using the in silico system in conjunction with currently used in vitro and in vivo techniques. This besides offering big improvement in productivity would also provide new differentiating capabilities.

Hailing CRIL’s foray into India, Vidya Shankar, IT/BT Secretary, Government of Karnataka, said, “The need to integrate drug mechanism and toxicity within the context of human cellular bio-chemical pathways makes new drug design and discovery a very challenging process and one that is very high up in the pharmaceutical value chain. Incorporation of emergent techniques like in silico based systems biology into the design of new molecules is a much needed innovation. Cellworks with its advanced R& D center in Bangalore is at the forefront of facilitating this paradigm shift in the pharmaceutical industry. Its unique world class team which is a blend of expertise in systems biology, chemistry, computational mathematics, pharma and semiconductor design automation, is perfectly suited to take the lead on this highly innovative initiative.”

Commenting on the successful deployment and usage of Cellworks technology to design new molecules in the oncology area, Dr. Fred Gorin, M.D., PhD, Professor Neurology, University of California, Davis said, "Using Cellworks virtual experimental platforms has revealed the different pathways and mechanisms by which uPA drug or genetic inhibitors affect cell migration, adhesion and attachment. The ability to understand drug mechanism to explain cancer cell death caused by our novel compounds indicates either (1) unaccounted drug targets by our compounds or (2) novel, unpublished pathways by which uPA inhibition is causing selective cancer cell death. Using the predictive technology from Cellworks enabled me to perform "what-if" analysis to test out new hypothesis".

According to Taher Abbasi, CEO and co-founder, Cellworks, “Systems Biology approach will not only hasten drug development by making the process more efficient but also enables researchers to qualify the biological target and associated toxicity at the nascent stage of discovery itself. We are in the process of building one of the largest teams of biology focused researchers in India involved in creation of comprehensive, extensively qualified set of disease aligned virtual platforms and underlying computational engines. Cellworks is committed to grow its collaborations with research teams and customers globally and facilitate deployment of this approach for drug discovery and research.”

Cellworks is among the very early companies in the world and among the first in the Asian region pioneering Systems Biology. With a cross functional team Cellworks strives to create and supply computational biological models of cell systems that can be used to analyze pathways in disease vs. normal conditions. This helps in understanding the effects of probable drugs on pathways within a cell and on cell systems and thereby reduces the chance of drug failure at a later stage, which often proves to be a costly affair.

About Cellworks:
Cellworks Group Inc. is a California Incorporated company with its R&D facility (Cellworks Research India Ltd) based in Bangalore, India. Cellworks adopts a multi-disciplinary and analytical approach to solve biological problems and is part of a new technology wave that will change people’s perception of the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. More information regarding Systems Biology approach to drug discovery and Cellworks expertise can be found in www.cellworksgroup.com
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