Faust's NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR platform will be used to identify drug candidates for specific GPCR targets
Strasbourg, France, January 7, 2008 - Faust Pharmaceuticals S.A., a clinical-stage product company specializing in the discovery and development of drugs for diseases of the nervous system, today announced that it has entered into a research agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Japan's largest pharmaceutical company. Under the agreement, Faust will apply its NEUROCLID(TM) platform to identify novel drug candidates that target undisclosed G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) of interest to Takeda.
"We are delighted to commence this research agreement with Takeda," noted Thomas Seoh, CEO of Faust. "The interactions between the Takeda and Faust research teams in planning these projects have been extremely high quality, and we very much look forward to applying our NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR platform to try to identify novel compounds and compound families for these promising GPCR targets."
"Faust's innovative NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR platform is a unique approach for discovering new chemical series for targeting challenging GPCRs," commented Dr. Shigenori Ohkawa, General Manager of the Takeda Pharmaceutical Research Division. "Faust's NEUROCLID(TM) platform is a promising example of state-of-the-art technologies that Takeda is willing to access from around the world in our search for novel drugs against these important drug targets."
Financial terms of the research agreement were not disclosed.
About GPCRs and Faust's NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR Platform GPCRs constitute the most druggable class of targets. It has been estimated that approximately 30% of marketed drugs target GPCRs. Faust's NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR drug discovery platform is an innovative technology using Faust's proprietary library of over 4,000 fluorescent ligands sharing common GPCR pharmacophores to setup cell-based binding FRET (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer) assays.
NEUROCLID(TM) detects small molecules and other agents that selectively bind the 7TM (transmembrane) region of GPCRs, a privileged binding site for allosteric modulators. Allosteric modulators amplify or dampen the effect of endogenous ligands and are therefore considered more physiological ligands, compared to traditional agonists and antagonists. In addition, NEUROCLID(TM) can identify novel compounds and chemical families that can not be identified by traditional functional screening methods typically used by the pharmaceutical industry, by systematically identifying so-called "silent" or "neutral" binders that can be turned into positive and negative allosteric modulators via traditional medicinal chemistry.
About Faust Pharmaceuticals SA Faust Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage product company specializing in the discovery and development of drugs for diseases of the nervous system. The company's lead compound, FP0011, is a small molecule glutamate inhibitor in Phase II initially targeting Parkinson's disease. A second compound, FP0023, is a fetal gene activating utrophin inducer targeting Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in preparation to enter the clinic in 2008. The company additionally has pre-clinical programs on targets such as Group III mGluRs (metabotropic glutamate receptors) and adenosine A2a, both initially targeting Parkinson's disease, as well as the proprietary NEUROCLID(TM) GPCR drug discovery engine.
About Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited Located in Osaka, Japan, Takeda is a research-based global company with its main focus on pharmaceuticals. As the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan and one of the global leaders of the industry, Takeda is committed to striving toward better health for individuals and progress in medicine by developing superior pharmaceutical products. Additional information about Takeda is available through its corporate website, http://www.takeda.com.
