Visionary Pharmaceuticals And BioBlocks, Inc. Announce A Drug Discovery Collaboration Targeting Serum And Glucocorticoid-Regulated Kinase 1 For Triple Negative Breast Cancer And Other Tumor Types

SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - January 08, 2014) -

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Visionary Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and BioBlocks, Inc. announced today the companies have established a collaboration for the discovery and development of novel small molecule inhibitors of Serum and Glucocorticoid-Regulated Kinase 1 (SGK1). This kinase has been implicated in tumorigenesis of various solid tumors including non-small cell lung cancer, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer. Importantly, SGK1 is a critical mediator of chemoresistance in triple negative breast cancer and other cancers. Together these cancers represent a significant unmet medical need.

The parties will combine their respective technologies and expertise to generate superior leads in novel patentable space. BioBlocks' contribution includes its Leap-to-Lead™ small molecule lead discovery platform comprised of its proprietary physical fragment libraries and the Syntheverse™ virtual library, a vast database of feasible molecules providing solutions for fragment evolution. Visionary's contributions include its BindingSIGHTS™ technology platform comprised of a suite of computational algorithms and knowledge engine which identifies critical inhibitory hotspots in kinase enzyme active sites.

"Visionary's leadership has demonstrated success in taking kinase inhibitors through IND and into the clinic. Our structure-based drug design capabilities and deep knowledge of non-classical kinase inhibitor drug discovery provide a rapid path to novel drug-like molecules," said Gordon Alton, Ph.D., President and CEO of Visionary. "BioBlocks brings state-of-the-art novel fragment libraries and dynamic fragment evolution technology to the collaboration. This has already provided high ligand efficiency chemical matter to initiate the triple negative breast cancer program."

"BioBlocks has significant proven medicinal chemistry capabilities to yield novel chemical matter which is a critical need in the area of kinase inhibitor drug discovery," said Peter Pallai, Ph.D., President and CEO of BioBlocks. "Together BioBlocks and Visionary have assembled a veteran team with well established expertise in small molecule drug optimization, kinase biology and oncology drug discovery. Collectively this experience has resulted in more than a dozen novel therapeutic agents either marketed or in clinical trials."

About Visionary Pharmaceuticals

Visionary Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held drug discovery company focused on new small molecule therapies in inflammation and cancer. Visionary's computational BindingSIGHTS™ technology provides advanced structural biology capabilities to optimize the development of drug candidates. Visionary is currently developing retinoic acid related orphan receptor (ROR) modulators targeting TH17 cells in a variety of diseases. To learn more about Visionary, please visit www.visionarypharmaceuticals.com.

About BioBlocks

Founded in San Diego in 2002, BioBlocks provides medicinal chemistry expertise and high value intermediates to partners in the drug discovery community. Aided by a results-based lead optimization model, BioBlocks scientists have developed mulitple preclinical candidates for its partners. The Company's Leap-to-Lead™ platform addresses fundamental issues in drug discovery -- the high attrition rate and lack of novelty found in typical high throughput screening hits -- by providing an alternative source for high quality tractable leads with multiple possible optimization pathways. For more information on BioBlocks and its lead discovery capabilities please visit www.bioblocks.com.