Vernalis plc and Servier, France’s largest privately-owned pharmaceutical company, today announce that they have achieved the first milestone in their three-year oncology drug discovery collaboration initiated in May 2007. The milestone gives rise to a payment of €500,000 from Servier to Vernalis and marks the solving of the novel crystal structure of an undisclosed oncology target.
The joint research programme, in which Servier provides funding for Vernalis’ scientists, applies Vernalis' proprietary structure-based discovery capabilities to two promising oncology targets involved in protein-protein interactions. The research combines fragment-based discovery, NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallographic technologies to rapidly generate and advance novel small molecule inhibitors. The methods provide detailed information on how these compounds bind to the targets and provide a basis for structure-guided medicinal chemistry.
“This milestone provides further demonstration of the power of Vernalis’ suite of discovery platforms to elucidate the structure of challenging drug targets”, commented Peter Fellner, Vernalis’ Executive Chairman. “We look forward to progressing the collaboration with Servier further to develop exciting new cancer therapies”.
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