Astex achieves milestone in Alzheimer's drug discovery collaboration with AstraZeneca
Astex Technology, the fragment-based drug discovery company, today announced that it has received the first research and development milestone payment from AstraZeneca as part of its collaboration to identify novel drugs against a key protein target implicated in Alzheimer's disease.
Under the collaboration which commenced in March 2003, Astex provided an initial series of small molecule inhibitors and is also applying its high-throughput X-ray crystallography and Pyramid(TM) approach for fragment-based drug discovery against the target, to rapidly identify additional novel drug candidates. Financial details were not disclosed.
"I am delighted to announce the recognition of this first research and development milestone by AstraZeneca which further endorses Astex's abilities in fragment-based drug discovery", commented Timothy Haines, Chief Executive of Astex. "Astex and AstraZeneca are working extremely effectively together and this has fuelled the significant progress made to date in the discovery of novel compounds against this high value Alzheimer's target." "AstraZeneca's collaboration with Astex exemplifies our commitment to the discovery and development of drugs that have the potential to treat neurological disorders," said Christof Angst, Vice President, CNS Discovery, AstraZeneca R&D Wilmington. "We are delighted with the research collaboration and look forward to future milestones and successes with Astex."
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