Khepri Reports New Research On Protease Inhibitors

California, USA-based drug research group Khepri Pharmaceuticals has announced new research results on a new class of small-molecule protease inhibitors which have a novel way of inactivating disease-associated enzymes.

A paper which will be presented at the American Chemical Society's half-yearly meeting will report that these inhibitors are chemically stable and are unreactive in the absence of specific targeted proteases. Researchers at Khepri say that they have found that the inhibitors only become activated by the catalytic mechanism of the target proteases.

Preliminary data in an animal model of arthritis show that the inhibitors developed by Khepri reduce both the tissue destruction and inflammation linked with the disease. The company's project leader James Palmer, in an article in the current issue of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, says that compounds designed to restore the natural equilibrium of protease activity present "excellent opportunities for drug candidates."