Vancouver's biOasis Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: BTI) announced this morning it has entered into a research and evaluation agreement with MedImmune, the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca.
Under the agreement, biOasis will conduct experiments with the objective of demonstrating the usefulness of its Transcend technology to MedImmune, at MedImmune's expense.
"The work we have done to date on Transcend and the milestones we have achieved all support driving us to agreements such as the one we are announcing today," said Rob Hutchison, CEO of biOasis, calling MedImmune a "leader in the development of biologics."
Hutchison told Business in Vancouver that the Transcend technology essentially transports therapeutic compounds to parts of the brain that would be otherwise unreachable.
He also said that biOasis has additional collaborative agreements with Vancouver's BRI Pharmaceutical Research Inc., Wax-it Histology Services and St. Paul's Hospital.
Formed in 2007, BiOasis is a Vancouver-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system diseases and disorders. The company describes Transcend as a "protein vector to shuttle existing therapeutic drugs across the blood-brain barrier."
In November 2010, the company sponsored a research agreement with the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada to investigate the effectiveness of this technology. In January of 2011, the NRC confirmed that Transcend is effective at shuttling compounds across the blood-brain barrier.
Neither company has released financial details of this agreement.
