Under the agreement, Plexxikon’s libraries will be screened in parallel against the most therapeutically relevant kinase targets among a panel of 100 enzymes available currently. Plexxikon anticipates a significant expansion of its preclinical portfolio of novel drug candidates for oncology, inflammation and metabolic disorders this year as a result of this further acceleration in its drug discovery process.
Plexxikon already is developing a number of kinase inhibitors from these libraries, including PLX647, a dual Kit and Fms kinase inhibitor for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, and a B-Raf inhibitor for the treatment of cancer.
“Invitrogen’s use of functional activity assays will provide us with the optimal read-out for determining selectivity and identification of the best drug candidates,” said Gideon Bollag, vice president of discovery biology at Plexxikon. “Based on previous validation work, we anticipate producing optimized development candidates in less than six months, thereby further accelerating our timeline to investigational new drug (IND) filing.”