Cephalon to develop new class of cancer drug
pharmafile | March 19, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | CRT, Cancer, Cancer Research UK, Cephalon
Pennsylvania-based Cephalon has signed a deal with the discovery arm of charity Cancer Research UK to develop a new class of cancer drug.
The US biotech will collaborate with Cancer Research Technology (CRT) on small molecule inhibitors targeting Protein Kinase C cell signalling proteins.
Cephalon gets an expanded oncology discovery portfolio out of the deal, with the new programme taking CRT’s promising lead compounds through to the selection of pre-clinical candidate molecules.
The work is taking place at CRT’s Discovery Laboratories in London and Cephalon’s facility in West Chester, USA with the aim of getting transforming successful candidate into new drug therapies for Cephalon.
CRT will receive upfront and milestone payments plus royalties based on achieving specific product sales targets, with Cephalon’s contribution also including resource provision to augment existing investment by Cancer Research.
CRT chief executive Keith Blundy called it a “major milestone” as it is the first of the outfit’s small molecule discovery programmes to partner with an international biopharma company.
“This unique collaboration will enable us to drive forward the development of potential innovative cancer medicines,” he added.
The programme will target isoforms of the Protein Kinase C family, which have been strongly linked to the development of cancer.
The isoforms are variants of this family, which controls the activity of other proteins by switching them on or off.
Two Cancer Research UK-funded researchers, Professors Peter Parker and Neil McDonald, contributed to the structural biology of the targets.
“This collaboration between Cephalon and CRT creates a critical mass of biology and chemistry expertise, capable of quickly advancing the high quality lead series CRT has identified,” said John Mallamo, vice president of worldwide chemical R&D at Cephalon.
“Cephalon is very pleased to be able to join forces with CRT to discover and develop first-in-class therapies in our fight against cancer.”
CRT is a specialist commercialisation and development company, wholly-owned by the charity Cancer Research UK.
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