AMRI Signs 10-Year, $39.5-Million NIH Pact

AMRI, a contract research, development, and manufacturing organization, has renewed a 10-year contract worth up to $39.5 million with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN). The renewal means AMRI will continue to provide the BPN with medicinal chemistry and absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) services focused on advancing drug-discovery programs in neurotherapeutics.

The original award for this work was made to AMRI in 2011. The BPN provides support for small-molecule drug discovery and development for companies and academic researchers looking to develop new medicines to treat nervous system disorders. The program gives successful applicants access to NIH-funded contract research organizations, such as AMRI, for outsourced discovery services. Services supported by this contract will include: exploratory chemistry; hit-to-lead and lead optimization efforts, including structure-activity-relationship (SAR) analysis and design; synthesis, in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity ADMET) studies; and computer-aided drug discovery. Under this new award, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which manages the BPN, now also has the opportunity to use AMRI’s additional capacity and medicinal chemistry capabilities at the company’s Drug Discovery Center of Excellence in Buffalo, New York.

In addition to this latest award, AMRI has three other prime contracts with the NIH and serves as a dedicated center for the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Chemical Biology Consortium (CBC), providing medicinal chemistry, compound profiling, in vitro ADMET, protein biochemistry, cancer-cell biology and preclinical development services, as needed. AMRI’s participation in the CBC is through a subcontract with Leidos Biomedical Research, the prime contractor for NCI’s Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research.

Source: AMRI

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