FREIBURG, Germany and SAN DIEGO, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ChemDiv, Inc. of San Diego, CA, and ProQinase GmbH of Freiburg, Germany, announced that they have signed an agreement to establish a partnership in the discovery and preclinical development of new kinase inhibitors.
Under the agreement ChemDiv will support design and synthesis of target-focused small molecule libraries, undertake medicinal chemistry for hit to lead and lead optimization, as well as DMPK and certain in vivo experiments. ProQinase will be responsible for in vitro kinase inhibitor screening and profiling on a panel of jointly selected oncology-relevant kinase targets, cellular assays and in vivo experiments. Both parties will share development costs and revenues from the planned out-licensing of optimized leads.
“Many protein kinases, when deregulated, are linked causally to the formation of human tumors. Inhibitors of protein kinases, such as Gleevec, IRESSA and Tarceva, are recently approved anti-cancer drugs. The development of protein kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer is still at its beginning stage. Due to the diversity of molecular alterations found in human cancers, the lack of efficient and safe drugs for treating different types of cancers is substantial,” states Dr. Michael Kubbutat, Head of Research & Development at ProQinase. “ProQinase has experience in the development of compounds that simultaneously block different mechanisms involved in tumor growth.”
Christoph Schaechtele, CEO of ProQinase, comments: “We are very optimistic about our new project with ChemDiv and are certain that this substantial investment will pay off. The selection of the panel of kinases takes into account market trends and latest scientific findings. The combination of our iProKiTe(R) platform covering powerful preclinical in vitro and in vivo methods with the medicinal chemistry expertise of our partner ChemDiv, will be successful in generating new drug candidates.”
Alex Kiselyov, VP of Chemistry at ChemDiv added: “ChemDiv has found a synergistic partner in the development of novel specific- and dual-kinase inhibitors. ProQinase offers state-of-the art molecular biology and screening capabilities, as well as an extensive set of in vivo models complementary to ChemDiv discovery biology platform. These are to strengthen our internal oncology programs. We are certain this collaboration will yield high quality pre-IND candidates for further development as anti-cancer therapies.”
About ChemDiv:
ChemDiv, Inc. (ChemDiv) is a global chemistry-driven contract research organization focused on the delivery of new scientific innovation, products and services that meet the drug discovery needs of its partners. ChemDiv provides partners with access to Discovery outSource(TM), a full service drug discovery capabilities encompassing: medicinal chemistry; pre-clinical development; synthetic chemistry; diverse and focused screening libraries, as well as global logistics. For additional information, please visit http://www.chemdiv.com.
About ProQinase:
ProQinase GmbH is a division of the KTB Tumorforschungs GmbH at the Tumor Biology Center Freiburg, Germany. Based on its Integrated Protein Kinase Technology Platform (iProKiTe(R)) ProQinase offers services to the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. At the same time this platform is used for internal drug development in collaboration with academic and industrial partners. iProKiTe(R) covers a large part of preclinical drug development in oncology, ranging from high throughput screening and kinase inhibitor profiling to cellular assays, in vivo models and soluble biomarker assays. Further information can be obtained from http://www.proqinase.com.
ChemDiv, Inc.
CONTACT: Henrik Konarkowski, Sr. Director of Business Development ofChemDiv, Inc., +1-858-794-4860, hk@chemdiv.com; or Dr. Michael Szardenings,Head Business Development of ProQinase GmbH, +49-761-206-1780,info@proqinase.com
