DAC and Evotec join forces to try and hit cancer target

The drug research and discovery firm Evotec has been selected by Genextra subsidiary DAC as a strategic partner on the HSP90 target, a key protein involved in a variety of oncogenic pathways in several cancer related diseases.

The terms of the agreement grant DAC access to compound intellectual property that Evotec has generated on the disease target in its internal r&d activities. Evotec identified novel fragments that interact with the HSP90 target from its 5,000 member fragment library. The x-ray crystal structures of the protein-ligand complexes identified a variety of binding modes, some of which, the company claim, will give rise to new approaches for inhibiting HSP90.

The collaboration is expected to run for an initial period of over two years, and for its contributions to the discovery project Evotec will potentially receive single digit millions from r&d service revenues and will be eligible for preclinical and clinical milestone payments.

"We are very excited about the potential for analogues of these compounds to be novel treatments for diseases that require inhibition of the HSP90 protein", said Dr Mark Ashton, executive vice president of Busi-ness Development Services at Evotec.

Paolo Fundaro, ceo of Genextra, added: "From existing collaborations with Evotec, we remained positively impressed by Evotec's medicinal chemistry capabilities and this, together with the results that Evotec had already generated against this disease target, convinced us to collaborate on this exciting project".