Astex presents new drug candidates

Astex is presenting data on three of its drug candidates at an industry event this week.

The UK therapeutics firm is showcasing AT7519, A&9283 and an FGFr kinase inhibitor at the 2008 AACR annual conference in San Diego that ends today (April 16th).

All three drug candidates were discovered internally using the company’s fragment-based drug discovery platform, Pyramid.

Dr David Rees, vice-president of the organisation’s medicinal chemistry, made the first public disclosure of the full chemical structure of AT7519 during his talk in the ‘meet-the-expert’ session.

Astex also presented data demonstrating the activity of its multi-targeted kinase inhibitor, AT9283, in chronic myelogenous leukaemia models.

In addition, it has a further five internal drug discovery programmes and is pursuing five projects in partnership with leading pharmaceutical companies including Novartis, AstraZeneca, Bayer Schering and Boehringer Ingelheim.

The company claims to be a pioneer in fragment-based drug discovery and uses its propriety drug discovery platform Pyramid to identify and characterise novel small drugs.