Cambridge, UK and Stevenage, UK, 15th September 2015 / Sciad Newswire / Domainex and Auspherix today announce an expansion of their collaboration to develop new drugs to tackle the growing threat of resistance to antibiotics. The programme has been extended through to 2017.
Since initiating the project in 2014, significant progress has been made towards the invention of new compounds with activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The collaboration extension aims both to refine the current chemical series towards selection of novel pre-clinical candidates and to explore potential additional compound series. A team of at least five chemists will be deployed at Domainex providing analytical and medicinal chemistry expertise, working in partnership with Auspherix’s growing R&D team.
Eddy Littler, Chief Executive Officer of Domainex said, “We are very pleased to have expanded our partnership with Auspherix. This is a strong endorsement of the inventiveness, productivity and client-focus of our drug discovery services team. We will undertake further lead optimisation studies to build on the excellent progress made to date. Together with Auspherix, we are focused on the identification of novel pre-clinical drug candidates to address the growing global burden of multi-drug resistant bacterial diseases.”
Alongside the expansion of the medicinal chemistry programme with Domainex, Auspherix is building its UK-based microbiology and management teams at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst. It is intensifying discovery research on its initial bacterial disease focus, and intends to explore further the potential in its antibiotic platform.
Professor Ian Charles, co-founder and CSO of Auspherix said, “Having established operations in the UK, our initial programmes are on track and making excellent progress. We believe the novel mechanism of action of our compound series discovered jointly with Domainex’s scientists offers enormous potential for the development of a new arsenal of drugs that will be required to treat the growing numbers of bacterial infections.”
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About Auspherix Ltd
Auspherix Ltd has discovered a brand new class of anti-bacterials with a unique profile and novel mechanism of action that could overcome the major global problem of antimicrobial resistance. Its compound series show activity against a broad range of multidrug resistant (MDR) gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, with PK profiles consistent with their use as antibacterial drugs for a number of indications with high unmet medical need and large market potential. Based in Stevenage UK (in the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst facility), the Company was founded in late 2013 based on discoveries made at the ithree institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The Company has raised AUS$2 million in Seed and Series A1 investments (2013-2014) from Australia’s Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) and £6 million in Series A2 round (2015) from the MRCF and the UK’s Imperial innovations plc (AIM IVO).
For further information please visit www.auspherix.com
About Domainex
Domainex Ltd. is a Cambridge-based small-molecule drug discovery company that provides integrated drug discovery services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic partners globally. Services cover a wide span of the drug discovery value chain, from disease target validation to pre-clinical candidate nomination. Domainex’s services include recombinant protein expression and use of its proprietary technology platform, Combinatorial Domain Hunting to identify soluble protein fragments for structural biology and assay development. Hit finding activities encompass assay development and screening utilising its Bioassay Builder and LeadBuilder portfolios. The core of the service platform is undertaking multi-parameter medicinal chemistry optimisation of hits and leads under the mantra ‘every compound counts’, which can save up to 30% of average industry time.
Additionally, Domainex is investing in developing its own therapeutic compounds for out-licensing in two specific areas: 1) Inhibitors of the kinases TBK1 & IKK epsilon to treat inflammatory conditions such as COPD and psoriasis; 2) The emerging epigenetic target class of lysine methyltransferases potentially implicated in oncology, where to date Domainex has built a portfolio of drug discovery assets encompassing novel chemical matter, proprietary assays and crystal structures.
For more information please visit www.domainex.co.uk
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