AstraZeneca partners with Cancer Research UK for new cancer medicines

Under the five-year deal, Cancer Research UK researchers will have access to around two million molecules in AstraZeneca’s compound library, in addition to screening tools at the facility located within its new site at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Cancer Research UK translational research funding head Alexa Smith said: "Having access to AstraZeneca’s extensive compound library and innovative drug discovery technology will help our researchers quickly translate new discoveries into patient benefit.

"We hope this initial proposed agreement will develop into a longer term arrangement that will boost our drug discovery capabilities further, with scope to develop similar strategic partnerships with other leading drug discovery organisations in future."

Advanced screening methods will be used to discover lead compounds within the compound library including fragment-based lead generation, under which small chemical fragments are screened against drug targets.

The collection of compounds being screened are useful for blocking kinase drug targets and phenotypic screens to identify active compounds within cells that could be starting points for new drugs.

Screening scientists from both the organisations will work alongside each other on about five drug screens per annum.

Cancer Research UK will select new cancer drug discovery projects to investigate, while AstraZeneca will have an option to negotiate a commercial licence with Cancer Research UK’s commercial arm Cancer Research Technology, to progress the promising candidates through further drug discovery and development.