UK biotech collaboration

Two British firms, De Novo Pharmaceuticals and Peakdale Molecular,
are to enter into a joint collaboration to exploit their respective
skills in molecular design and chemistry synthesis, writes market
analysts Datamonitor this week.

Two British firms, De Novo Pharmaceuticals and Peakdale Molecular, are to enter into a joint collaboration to exploit their respective skills in molecular design and chemistry synthesis, writes market analysts Datamonitor this week.

For the collaboration, Peakdale and De Novo will work together to design and supply novel compounds, specifically targeted towards the discovery of new molecules active at G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).

"Both companies recognise the importance to drug discovery of effectively exploring chemical diversity in the search for novel, patentable compounds,"​ said Steve Beasley, De Novo's COO in a statement.

"Our expertise in drug design allows us to explore synthetically feasible chemical space associated with a biological target or family. Ally this with Peakdale's demonstrated skill in providing novel compounds that have proved highly effective in pharmaceutical research and you have a potent collaboration."

De Novo has proprietary expertise for the in silico de novo design of novel chemotypes against biological enzyme and receptor targets. De Novo's proprietary technology Quasi2 allows the generation of feature rich, 'extended pharmacophore' models from known active ligands allowing drug design in the absence of structural data. While Peakdale has chemistry expertise in the design, creation and successful synthesis of novel chemotypes in pharmaceutical research.

According to the two companies the first objective of the collaboration is to make available from Peakdale a range of screening compounds suitable for use in lead discovery, initially targeted at sub-families within the GPCR super family.

Further objectives are based on the application of the acquired knowledge to increase the selectivity of the approach in collaboration with a number of partner pharmaceutical companies.

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