CAMBRIDGE, U.K., Oct. 21, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Astex Technology, the structure-based drug discovery-company, today announced a drug discovery collaboration in the area of metabolic disorders with Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation. The collaboration has been established to identify novel lead compounds against a key protein target and will then be extended to other targets.
Astex will apply its high throughput Xray crystallography and Pyramid(TM) approach for fragment-based drug discovery against the target, to rapidly identify novel drug candidates. Astex's unique structural screening approach will utilize the protein crystal structure of the target to detect the binding of drug fragments, which will then be optimized into potent lead compounds for subsequent clinical development by Mitsubishi. Facilitating this approach is the Company's integrated drug discovery platform of HTX(R) technologies, which covers all aspects of structure-based research including protein production, crystallization, structure determination, bioinformatics and computational and medicinal chemistry. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We are delighted that Mitsubishi has once again chosen to work with Astex, subsequent to our first collaboration on cytochrome P450s," commented Timothy Haines, Chief Executive of Astex. "This collaboration will initially focus on developing quality lead compounds for an important Mitsubishi project, before expanding to additional targets. As such, it provides further validation of Astex's significant capabilities in structure-based drug discovery."
Astex Technology 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 optimization, and structural biology research agreements with AstraZeneca AB, Aventis Pharmaceuticals and Mitsubishi Pharma focused on solving novel cytochrome P450 crystal structures.
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