CAMBRIDGE, U.K. and CORNWALL, U.K., May 7, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Astex Technology, the private, structure-based drug discovery company, and Maybridge plc, a world leader in the supply of small molecule screening compounds, building blocks and associated chemistries, today announced a collaboration based on in silico screening of proprietary molecular libraries and synthetic chemistry. The collaboration combines Astex's unique approach to structure-based screening with Maybridge's vast collection of proprietary chemistries.
Under the terms of the agreement, Astex and Maybridge will collaborate to construct a proprietary in silico library from Maybridge's heterocyclic chemistry derived from their 40 years of proven expertise in this field. Astex will use this library as part of their in silico and experimental X-ray crystallographic structural screening against targets in Astex's portfolio. Active compounds will be rapidly optimised using Astex's proprietary structure based design tools. The agreement provides for fee-for-service chemistry-based drug discovery and development, and contract synthesis services. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Dr. Robin Carr, VP Lead Discovery at Astex, commented: "Maybridge has a fantastic track record for developing biologically active heterocyclic screening libraries. Leveraging Astex's structural screening and Maybridge's excellent enabled chemistry represents a very powerful combination for rapidly identifying quality novel leads."
"We are excited to be working with Astex, a recognized technology leader in the drug discovery sector. We look forward to Astex benefiting from our Screening compounds and heterocyclic chemistries and providing them with valuable leads from our compounds," said Dr. Nick Kerton, CEO at Maybridge plc.
Astex Technology is a structure-based drug discovery company pioneering the use of high throughput X-ray crystallography for the rapid identification of novel drug candidates. The company's unique structural screening approach utilizes protein crystal structures to detect the binding of drug fragments, which are then optimized into potent lead compounds. Facilitating this approach is the company's integrated drug discovery platform of HTX(TM) technologies, which covers all aspects of structure-based research, including protein production, crystallization, structure determination, bioinformatics and computational and medicinal chemistry. Astex is focusing its drug discovery approaches on proprietary and public domain protein targets from families and/or pathways. This includes validated kinases, phosphatases and proteases implicated in human disease. Astex has research agreements with Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development focused on lead discovery and optimisation, and structural biology research agreements with AstraZeneca AB and Aventis Pharmaceuticals focused on solving novel cytochrome P450 crystal structures.
Maybridge plc is a leading producer of organic compounds used in High Throughput Screening and Lead Generation, and Combinatorial Chemistry and Lead Optimization. The Maybridge Screening collection consists of over 56,000 organic diverse drug-like compounds, produced by innovative synthetic techniques, often unique to Maybridge. The CombiChem unit produces compounds for combinatorial chemistry applications in the lead optimization process. Maybridge also offers a unique range of Reactive Intermediates, building blocks specifically designed for lead optimization and diverse library generation. The Maybridge Research Unit - MRU - gives customers the opportunity to benefit from Maybridge's expertise in the fields of lead generation and lead optimization, and is uniquely placed to help customers exploit hits that are generated from the Maybridge Screening collection. These projects are tailored according to the customer's requirements and expectations, and are typically based on FTE contracts involving template or scaffold design and the production of focussed libraries around specific intermediates, for the hit-to-lead optimization stage of drug discovery programs.