Oleoyl-Estrone Developments (OED), a recently founded pharmaceutical company, was created in March 2001.The initiative of the Nitrogen-Obesity research group (or NO group) of the University of Barcelona (UB), led by Dr. Marià Alemany, Dr. José A. Fernández and Dr. Xavier Remesar, OED was set up with the support of the UB and the Fundació Bosch i Gimpera (the UB's Technology Transfer Centre). As a result of their contributions, the UB became a company shareholder. OED, the first spin-off from a research group of the UB, became operational in September 2001, thanks to a grant from the CIDEM (Center for the Innovation and Business Development of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia).
	The company holds the Intellectual Property Rights of its leading product, oleoyl-estrone (OE), a natural hormone that has proved to be an excellent candidate for treatment of obesity and related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, and hypertension among others (collectively, known as syndrome X). These rights consist of several patents, and the know-how of our research team in this area of knowledge.
	In 2002, OED and a US-based company, Manhattan Pharmaceuticals Inc., entered into a license and development agreement for the worldwide, exclusive rights to oleoyl-estrone. Manhattan Pharmaceuticals will carry out the development of OE needed to obtain the drug's approval from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).
	The mission of OED is to discover and develop new drugs and technologies for the treatment of syndrome X . The company will now focus its research efforts on gaining further insight into the mechanism of action of OE, with the aim of discovering a new family of compounds which complement and even enhance the benefits of this hormone.
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