New Anglo-Swedish fragment-based drug discovery project

Two leading companies in the area of fragment-based drug discovery have announced a new commercial alliance. IOTA Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, UK, and Beactica AB, based in Uppsala, Sweden, will join forces to deploy a proprietary FBDD-based lead discovery and optimization platform.

The IOTA-Beactica platform couples comprehensive, site-directed FBDD libraries to state-of-the-art fragment and lead screening using surface plasmon resonance biosensor technology, enabling the rapid progression of new discovery programs from concept to optimized lead.

Based on rapid determination of ligand-target interaction information, and using a unique combination of fragment-based drug screening and medicinal chemistry-led design approaches, applicable to a wide range of new targets, the platform will initially focus on the development of new classes of kinase inhibitors. The reagents, tools and technologies developed by the two companies will be commercialized through drug discovery partnerships with pharmaceutical companies active in the kinase area.