NewLab is aggressively pursuing licensing and partnering deals in order to gain access to drugs suitable for re-purposing in therapeutic areas where NewLab has special expertise and other advantages. NewLab’s strategy is to identify IP or products that are substantially de-risked and that require minimal investment to advance or re-purpose for commercial application. NewLab’s licensing and acquisition strategy is facilitated by its existing business relationships with a large number of pharmaceutical companies and its extensive network of contacts. NewLab is currently engaged in late stage negotiations with several parties to gain access to late stage or approved products.
Dr. Valerie Booth (Memorial University)
Assistant Professor, Tier II Canada Research Chair, Department of Biochemistry and Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Dr. Booth is Memorial’s Tier II Canada Research Chair in Proteomics and has recently started her own research group focused on membrane-associated protein structure determination by NMR and computer simulation. Though newly formed, the group is already very active and currently consists of a full time technician, a part time technician, two graduate students and two undergraduate students, with an open postdoctoral position and two open positions for graduate students that should be filled within the next 6 months. Dr. Booth’s training was received in high profile research groups in the area of protein NMR – her PhD was done at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Cheryl Arrowsmith and Aled Edwards, and her postdoctoral training took place at the University of Alberta with Brian Sykes. Dr. Booth has been recognized by number of prestigious awards including a Parker B. Francis Fellowship in Pulmonary Research, a CIHR fellowship, and an AHFMR “Fast-Track” Fellowship. She was awarded a major CFI New Opportunities award to support the purchase of a new NMR spectrometer – the award was the second largest of all the grants awarded in this competition (announced March 2005). Dr. Booth has also been successful in obtaining operating grants from NSERC and CIHR (through RPP).
Dr. Booth’s experience is well tailored to this project. A major focus of her past work has been in determining receptor bound conformations of proteins and peptides, and has been geared towards drug development. She has experience in commercialization of her work. For example, she wrote the provisional patent for the initial protection of a structural motif that she discovered could be used to bind a receptor important in HIV infection.
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