US biotech company hits new milestone for PCOS drug programme

The US biotech company Celmatix has announced a new milestone in five-year alliance to advance ovarian health.

The milestone was triggered by Evotec and Bayer AG advancing a second drug programme, centred around a novel drug target, into hit-identification.

Celmatix, a preclinical-stage women’s health biotech company focused on ovarian biology, aims to address areas of high unmet need by developing new interventions in ovarian health.

Its ovarian health platform has amassed the largest structured dataset on ovarian health in the world to accelerate research and new drug programmes.

Worldwide, hundreds of millions of women are struggling with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common endocrine disorder in premenopausal women.

While the underlying cause of PCOS is largely unknown, genomic studies suggest a strong genetic connection.

“We are pleased to see another confirmation that the proprietary data in our in-silico discovery platform, paired with our team’s deep expertise in female biology, has unlocked novel biological insights that are driving innovation in women’s health therapeutic development,” said Celmatix founder and CEO, Dr Piraye Yurttas Beim.

“The independent validation of our second novel PCOS drug target by Evotec and Bayer is a significant proof point of our precision phenotyping approach to genomics and of the power of our platform, particularly the data from patients within our Personalised Reproductive Medicine (PReM) Initiative consortium research cohort.

“Celmatix was founded in 2009 to better understand what makes female biology unique and develop products, personalised for women, based on that knowledge.

“This milestone brings us closer to more effective treatments for women with PCOS, a highly prevalent condition with high unmet clinical need,” the founder added.