Astex Pharmaceuticals, Cancer Research Technology and Newcastle University Sign Strategic Drug Discovery Alliance

Astex Pharmaceuticals

, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel small molecule therapeutics, Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT) and Newcastle University have signed a major five-year strategic drug discovery alliance. The partners will discover and develop new cancer drugs in collaboration with researchers at the Cancer Research UK Drug Discovery Program at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research (NICR, Newcastle University). During the five-year alliance, Astex will provide £1M funding annually to Newcastle University to support research across biology, chemistry, pharmacology and imaging at the NICR to identify and develop new cancer drugs and associated biomarkers to develop tests to determine which patients to treat and if new drugs are working. Harren Jhoti, PhD, president and director of Astex Pharmaceuticals, said, "We are delighted to enter into this broad strategic drug discovery alliance with one of Cancer Research UK's leading drug discovery centers as it allows Astex to access world-leading translational research in oncology." "This new alliance builds on a previous collaboration between Astex, Newcastle and CRT on FGFr, a key cancer target, which led to the development of a clinical candidate that our partners at Janssen have recently taken into a Phase I clinical trial, and we look forward to discovering more new potential therapies for cancer patients."