Astex Pharmaceuticals in drug discovery pact with Cancer Research Technology, Newcastle University

Astex Pharmaceuticals,  Inc, 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 engage in discovering and developing 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 £1 million 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 this broad strategic drug discovery alliance with one of Cancer Research UK's leading drug discovery centres 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 commercialise 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, says, ''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.''