Advances In Open Innovation At AstraZeneca
David Smith,
Principal Scientist,
AstraZeneca R&D
AstraZeneca (AZ) is working with academic partners in a comprehensive suite of partnership models where the company shares chemical tools to help validate new targets and to open up new clinical opportunities for existing compounds. The Target innovation concept is aimed at screening novel targets to produce tool compounds for target validation and lead compound series for drug discovery. The screening can be high throughput diversity screens, phenotypic screens or fragment screens. An example of this approach is a diversity screen run at AZ to find inhibitors of Galphaq to treat uveal melanoma. Using a fluorescence polarization based screen of 1.8 million compounds we found 6600 confirmed hits. We are working with our collaborators at University of North Carolina to convert these hits to lead compounds. We are also working to reprofile former phase II clinical compounds which, although safe and proven to engage the target, were not efficacious at the initial indication. In a collaboration with Yale University we have been trying to establish if our src family kinase inhibitor, saracatinib (AZD0530), is a potential breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. It has been established that the compound is highly active in mouse disease models and has pharmacokinetics in man such that exposure is sufficient to test proof of concept in the clinic. Phase IIA trials are underway.
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