Strategic Drug Discovery Alliance signed by CRT, Astex Pharmaceuticals and Newcastle University

Astex Pharmaceuticals,  Inc. (Nasdaq: ASTX), a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel small molecule therapeutics, Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT) and Newcastle University  have signed a major five-year strategic drug discovery alliance. The partners will discover and develop new cancer drugs in collaboration with researchers at the Cancer Research UK Drug Discovery Program at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research (NICR, Newcastle University).

During the five-year alliance, Astex will provide £1M funding annually to Newcastle University to support research across biology, chemistry, pharmacology and imaging at the NICR to identify and develop new cancer drugs and associated biomarkers to develop tests to determine which patients to treat and if new drugs are working.

Harren Jhoti, PhD, director  and president of Astex Pharmaceuticals, said: “We are delighted to enter into this broad strategic drug discovery alliance with one of Cancer Research UK’s leading drug discovery centers as it allows Astex to access world-leading translational research in oncology.

“This new alliance builds on a previous collaboration between Astex, Newcastle and CRT on FGFr, a key cancer target, which led to the development of a clinical candidate that our partners at Janssen have recently taken into a Phase I clinical trial, and we look forward to discovering more new potential therapies for cancer patients.”

Astex will retain an option to an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialize pharmaceutical products from each alliance project.  CRT and Newcastle are eligible to receive development and regulatory milestone payments on exercise of the options, and on products that Astex takes into development (and royalties on sales of products).  Financial terms of the milestone payments and royalties were not disclosed.

Professor Herbie Newell, co-director of the Cancer Research UK Drug Discovery Program at the NICR, Newcastle University, said: “This exciting alliance represents an innovative route to the development of more effective cancer drugs by combining the partners’ expertise and experience.

“The research will bring together pre-clinical drug and biomarker discovery approaches using molecular, genetic and clinical data to identify new targets in cancer cells that can be treated with drugs, and ultimately medicines to take into clinical trials that will provide new ways to treat the disease and increase survival.”

Dr Keith Blundy, Cancer Research Technology’s chief executive, said: “This major collaboration, which builds on the successes and impressive track record of all partners, will further develop Cancer Research UK’s world-class research into cancer treatments.

“Risk-sharing partnerships like this enable us to maximise the development of our basic research portfolio into new treatments for patients.

“The success of our existing network of partnerships is seen in our drug development pipeline which is the largest and most diverse of any academic partner worldwide with more than 30 cancer therapies in clinical development, and a further 175 discovery/pre-clinical projects in our portfolio, of which 55 are partnered with industry.”

ENDS

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