Medivir, a research based pharmaceutical company based in Sweden, has announced a reorganization within its Discovery Research department, increasing its focus within the core areas of oncology and infectious diseases, and a partnership with GVK Biosciences Private (GVK BIO) of Hyderabad in India, designed to deliver enhanced efficiency and quality within its portfolio of research projects while over time reducing overall research costs and enhancing future cost flexibility.

To ensure that its operations are run as efficiently as possible, Medivir has conducted a review of its Discovery Research operations. While committed to maintaining the current size of its discovery portfolio to deliver a constant flow of candidate drugs into its development pipeline, it has identified the opportunity to improve quality and efficiency through partnership with GVK BIO. The partnership will consolidate and strengthen all current out-sourced synthetic chemistry in a single facility at GVK BIO’s Integrated Discovery Research Campus, where an addition of approximately 20 scientific staff will further accelerate the synthesis and testing of compounds.

The company also has decided to exit the neuropathic pain area, following adverse findings in non-clinical safety studies of MIV-247, its cathepsin S inhibitor being developed for neuropathic pain. Development of this program has been terminated and future drug discovery efforts will be focused in the core areas of oncology and infectious diseases.

As a result of the changes described above, around 10 scientific staff at Medivir facilities in the U.K. and Sweden will be made redundant.