NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC) has acquired the microbiome-based drug discovery division of iXpressGenes (iXG) for an undisclosed amount.
CFDRC and iXpressGenes are both associate companies of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama.
As part of the acquisition, CFDRC obtained iXG's high-throughput antimicrobial discovery platform, EMAD (extremophilic microbiome antimicrobial discovery), and all key personnel associated with the division, the companies said.
The EMAD platform uses metagenomic analysis of extremophilic microbiomes and synthetic biology to discover and produce novel antimicrobials against a variety of pathogens.
"We are excited about integrating the EMAD platform with CFDRC's existing biomedical technologies to accelerate the discovery of new antibiotics against biowarfare agents and drug-resistant bacteria," CFDRC President and CEO Sameer Singhal said in a statement.
CFDRC was founded in 1987 with the goal of developing and commercializing technologies for the aerospace, biomedical, energy, and materials markets. According to its website, the firm couples physics- and physiology-based methods for computational biology, computational chemistry modeling, and simulation tools.