Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

About Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Lexicon Genetics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery of breakthrough treatments for human disease. We use proprietary gene knockout technology to systematically discover the physiological functions of genes in mice and to identify which corresponding human genes encode potential targets for therapeutic intervention, or drug targets. For those targets that we consider to have high pharmaceutical value, we engage in programs for the discovery and development of potential small molecule drugs, therapeutic antibodies and therapeutic proteins. Our physiology-based approach to understanding gene function and our use of mouse models in our drug discovery efforts allow us to make highly-informed decisions throughout the drug discovery and development process, which we believe will increase our likelihood of success in discovering breakthrough therapeutics.

We use solution-phase chemistry to generate diverse libraries of optically pure compounds that are targeted against the same pharmaceutically relevant gene families that we address in our Genome5000 program. These libraries are built using highly robust and scalable organic reactions that allow us to generate compound collections of great diversity and to specially tailor the compound collections to address various therapeutic target families. We design these libraries by analyzing the chemical structures of drugs that have been proven safe and effective against human disease and using that knowledge in the design of scaffolds and chemical building blocks for the generation of large numbers of new drug-like compounds. We can rapidly reassemble these building blocks to generate optimization libraries when we identify a hit against one of our in vivo-validated targets, enabling us to rapidly optimize those hits and accelerate our medicinal chemistry efforts.

Our medicinal chemistry technology is housed in a state-of-the-art 76,000 square foot facility in Hopewell, New Jersey. Our lead optimization chemistry groups are organized around specific discovery targets and work closely with their pharmaceutical biology counterparts in our facilities in The Woodlands, Texas. The medicinal chemists optimize lead compounds in order to select clinical candidates with the desired absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and physicochemical characteristics. We have the capability to profile our compounds using the same battery of in vivo assays that we use to characterize our drug discovery targets. This provides us with valuable detailed information relevant to the selection of the highest quality compounds for clinical development.

Last Updated: 03-16-04