Completed the project 'Open Platform for European Networking and Repurposing of Oncological Assets and Drugs (NEWROAD)'

The project «Open Platform for European Networking and Repurposing of Oncological Assets and Drugs (NEWROAD)», a project within the framework of the European Commission’s Europe4Health program, has been successfully completed.

This project, NEWROAD, was developed by a consortium led by the University of Salerno in collaboration with Softmining, Biovista, and Laminar Pharmaceuticals. The project’s main objective was to develop an EU-level capacity for the Systematic Repurposing of Medicines, which means the ability to identify, with a high degree of predictive accuracy, new therapies for any disease of interest and, in the future, for any combination of diseases.

The main task from Laminar was corresponding to the «Platform Validation». It consisted of validating the protocol by synthesizing identified molecules and performing the in vitro – in vivo testing. This step also includes the search for potential active drugs, which if interesting, could be out-licensed.

The specific objectives of the platform validation were:

Synthesize antitumor drugs determined in silico to target anticancer targets.
Determine the in cellula efficacy (IC50) of the synthesized compounds against human cancer cell growth.
Analyse the correlation between the binding affinity determined in silico (Kd) and the efficacy obtained in vivo (IC50).
Determine the efficacy of the selected drugs in animal models (xenografts) of human cancer.

A total of €981,915 were awarded, of which Laminar received €284,213 as a grant. We thank all participants for their collaboration in bringing this project to success.

ByJavier Fernandez-Diaz