Particle Sciences Inc. (PSI), a leading pharmaceutical Contract Research Organization (CRO), has been engaged by Children's Hospital Boston to help advance early stage molecules and drug innovations into new therapeutic products for patient care. Under the established framework between Children's and PSI, Particle Sciences provides drug product development services aimed at progressing the specific drug or drug product candidate to the point where it becomes attractive to potential licensees. Under the non-exclusive agreement, Children's retains all rights to the drug product, as well as the data and intellectual property created under this arrangement.
According to Erik Halvorsen, Ph.D., director of the Technology and Innovation Development Office (TIDO) at Children's, "Particle Sciences is one of several CRO's we have chosen to work with. They bring a great deal of experience to the effort in both drug delivery and analytic method development. Importantly, in an early stage exercise such as this we need our partners to remain flexible and to participate as more than simply fee for service providers. Particle Sciences has demonstrated this and we are happy to be working with them."
The Children's Technology Development Program selects early stage technologies from the world-class staff at Children's and provides enough funding to progress them to meaningful inflection points. This could include activities ranging from establishing pre-clinical data for an IND submission or a solid pre-formulation package leading to process scale up that would enable clinical studies. Along with funding, the program provides expert advisors with appropriate industrial experience. According to Dr. Mark Mitchnick, CEO at Particle Sciences, "We couldn't be more pleased to be involved with this effort. Children's Hospital Boston is one of the world's great institutions. The technologies we have seen so far reflect the depth one would expect from such a group and we are thrilled to be able to help commercialize them."
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