Dr. Reddy's rejigs drug discovery operations

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. announced that effective July 1, the Drug Discovery operations at Hyderabad will be absorbed into Aurigene, a wholly owned independent subsidiary of the company. Aurigene is a partnership based Drug Discovery biotech headquartered in Bangalore. The Discovery Research resources - employees, facility and infrastructure will transition into being resources of Aurigene, which will now operate out of two sites - Bangalore and Hyderabad. In addition, Dr. Reddy's will be creating a new group to focus on Proprietary Products development, which will be responsible for building the proprietary, branded R&D portfolio in collaboration with various partners and service providers. As part of the reorganization, the company will close the Atlanta Research facility in the US.

Separately, Dr. Reddy's announced that the first human subjects were successfully dosed in a Phase I study with DRL 17822, a selective inhibitor of CETP, for the treatment of dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis and associated cardiovascular diseases. The compound shows potent elevation in HDL-C and reduction of atherosclerotic plaques in animals, and has a clean safety profile in preclinical studies. The two other IND’s are for the treatment of COPD and dyslipidemia