AstraZeneca buys UK cancer research firm
pharmafile | January 4, 2006 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â Â
AstraZeneca has bought a small UK biotech company KuDOS which specialises in cutting edge cancer research.
AstraZeneca made its name in cancer, discovering the breakthrough breast cancer drug tamoxifen and launched it as Nolvadex in 1973. Since then the company has been one of pharma's leading oncology companies, but is now coming under new pressure as more companies enter the therapy area.
The late-stage failure of a number of key products including lung cancer drug Iressa has been a major blow to the company, and its management has responded by signing a number of new deals with biotech partners to bolster its pipeline.
AstraZeneca says the purchase of KuDOS (relatively small at 120 million pounds) is an important strategic step for it, broadening its cancer portfolio and its access to new technologies.
The small company was set up by Prof Stephen Jackson of Cambridge University, who based its research programme around new small molecules which block DNA repair to cancer cells.
KuDOS' most advanced drug candidate KU 59436 is in phase I studies and works by inhibiting the oral poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) enzyme, which plays a key role in repairing damage to the DNA of cells.
KU 59436 could one day be the first DNA repair inhibitor, with the potential to kill cancer cells either as stand alone therapy or by enhancing the efficacy of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Such small molecules could be a significant breakthrough in cancer management, particularly in therapy-resistant tumours.
Inhibiting PARP selectively kills tumour cells lacking something called the homologous recombination (HR) DNA repair pathway, while ignoring normal cells. Two well-known markers for breast and ovarian cancer are the hereditary BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, for which there are diagnostic tests already available.
AstraZeneca and KuDOS say this therapeutic/diagnostic combination offers exciting potential that KU 59436 could join the growing ranks of targeted cancer therapies such as Roche's Herceptin.
KuDOS currently has 75 employees working across two sites, one in Cambridge and another in Horsham. The researchers will remain at their present locations and report into AstraZeneca's Global Cancer and Infection Research Area (CIRA).
The acquisition is the latest in a flurry of deals for AstraZeneca, which also recently announced in-licensing of phase II anti-sepsis treatment CytoFab from Protherics and a deal with Targacept for its phase II TC-1734, a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease, cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and other cognitive disorders.
Closest to market is the phase III atherosclerosis treatment AGI-1067 which AstraZeneca has in-licensed from US company AtheroGenics. AstraZeneca has paid an upfront fee of $50 million to the company, which could eventually earn $1 billion in fees and royalties if sales milestones are reached.
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