CAMBRIDGE, UK I April 16, 2018 I PhoreMost, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to drugging ‘undruggable’ disease targets, today announced it has signed a collaborative agreement with Plexxikon Inc., the small molecule structure-guided R&D centre of Daiichi Sankyo.

Under the agreement, PhoreMost will apply its next-generation phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER®, towards key cancer-driving cellular pathways. The alliance will draw upon expertise in signal transduction from Dr. Simon Cook at the Babraham Institute (Cambridge, UK). The goal of the collaboration will be to deliver novel drug targets that can serve as starting points for new drug discovery initiatives led by Plexxikon.

“We are delighted to have signed our agreement with PhoreMost. The SITESEEKER approach using small peptides to rapidly and systematically search for drug targets can provide significant value to Plexxikon’s structure-guided drug discovery programs,” said Dr. Gideon Bollag, CEO of Plexxikon.

Dr. Chris Torrance CEO of PhoreMost, said: “We are excited to bring our SITESEEKER technology to this collaboration with Plexxikon and the Cook lab, leading experts in cell signalling pathways. This is an ideal partnership to potentially transform biological insights into the next generation of innovative medicines.”

Dr. Simon Cook from the Babraham Institute, said: “I am thrilled to be working together with both PhoreMost and Plexxikon. This is a great example of partners with complementary skill-sets coming together to identify and validate elusive new drug targets.”

About PhoreMost Ltd

PhoreMost has developed a next-generation phenotypic screening platform called SITESEEKER® that can discern the best new targets for future therapy and crucially, how to drug them, which has the potential to significantly increase the diversity and affordability of novel therapeutics for cancer and other unmet diseases. Based on the Company’s core proprietary ‘Protein Interference’ technology’, SITESEEKER® systematically unmasks cryptic druggable sites across the entire human genome and directly links them to useful therapeutic functions in a live-cell context. Using this platform, PhoreMost is building a pipeline of novel drug discovery programmes aimed at addressing a range of unmet diseases.

About the Babraham Institute

The Babraham Institute receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to undertake world-class life sciences research. Its goal is to generate new knowledge of biological mechanisms underpinning ageing, development and the maintenance of health. Research focuses on signalling, the immune system and gene regulation and the impact of epigenetic regulation at different stages of life. By determining how the body reacts to dietary and environmental stimuli and manages microbial and viral interactions, we aim to improve wellbeing and support healthier ageing. Follow us on Twitter at @BabrahamInst

SOURCE: PhoreMost