COTI looks for new partner to develop HIV integrase inhibitor scaffolds

The novel small molecule scaffolds were identified using COTI’s drug discovery technology CHEMSAS.

CHEMSAS uses a series of predictive computer models to identify compounds most likely to be successfully incorporated in disease-specific drug discovery, as well as subsequent optimization and preclinical development.

COTI said the scaffolds have shown encouraging results during recent testing in the company’s co-development program with a major pharmaceutical company.

The first three latest scaffolds in COTI’s program have an entirely new binding and interaction with the active site of the viral enzyme.

COTI president and CEO Wayne Danter said they are now in the process of finalizing several potential next generation HIV integrase inhibitor candidates based on their novel validated scaffolds.

These current testing results continue to validate the CHEMSAS technology and demonstrate its capability to identify promising small molecules for difficult drug targets.