Anne Weiss
Scientific Research Associate
Union Therapeutics
Biography
UNION is a privately held, clinical stage, pharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of novel medicines based on compounds demonstrating both microbiological and immunological effects. UNION is currently focusing on the treatment of inflammatory skin disease, but the chemistry platform and its versatile new modes of action have been utilized to discover medicinal candidates with applicability across a wide range of diseases.
In 2013, UNION was rewarded a larger grant to identify new antibacterial compounds and microbiome modulators on the basis of an advanced screening model. UNION shortly after discovered unappreciated effects in a well-established molecule and identified an opportunity to build an attractive IP position around the molecule. Further research documented the molecule (ATx201) to have a novel mode of action against bacteria alongside attractive anti-resistance properties. While UNION initially focused on antimicrobial activity, the scientific team discovered several of the compounds from the platform to also have novel anti-inflammatory properties, which enabled the pursuit of medicines for diseases across both microbiology and immunology as well as at the intercept of the two.
Through extensive pre-clinical and clinical development, UNION has built extensive knowledge and generated proprietary data about the compound class, and has successfully secured a strong global IP position with issued patents. Following the discovery of ATx201, the scope of work was expanded to encompass the broader class of compounds including also novel medicinal chemistry which has led to the discovery of new chemical entities.
As a result of the broadening of the therapeutic focus beyond antibacterials and microbiome modulators, the company name was changed from AntibioTx A/S to UNION therapeutics A/S (UNION) in October 2018.