1 May 2018 07:00
C4X Discovery Holdings plc
("C4XD", "C4X Discovery" or the "Company")
Collaboration with e-Therapeutics to identify novel mechanisms for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease
1 May 2018 - C4X Discovery Holdings plc (AIM: C4XD), a pioneering drug discovery company, announces that it has entered into a joint research collaboration with e-Therapeutics plc (AIM: ETX) to identify novel mechanistic insights into Parkinson's Disease (PD). The collaboration utilises both companies' drug discovery technologies, in particular C4XD's Taxonomy3® novel target identification platform and ETX's Network-driven Drug Discovery (NDD) capabilities. Teams from both companies will use the outputs from C4XD's Taxonomy3® genetic analysis of PD and apply an NDD approach to identify novel intervention strategies which it is expected will lead to new approaches for the treatment of PD.
C4XD's proprietary target discovery technology Taxonomy3® has identified 180 novel disease associated genes in Parkinson's Disease (PD) in addition to the identification of discrete patient sub-groups that could potentially provide an opportunity in stratified medicine. The discovery of these new genetic associations further confirms the power of Taxonomy3® to generate novel genetic insights into diseases with high unmet medical need. To put these findings into context, at the start of 2017 only 40 PD associated genes were known in the scientific literature, and last September, Genentech and 23andme published the results of their collaboration in the scientific journal Nature Genetics (Nature Genetics 49, 1511-1516, 2017), which identified a further 17 novel genetic variants representing 32 new PD associated genes.
The combination of C4XD's proprietary novel disease associated genes with known PD literature genes provides a unique and rich dataset to apply to ETX's NDD platform, harnessing the latest mathematical and data analysis techniques to augment and interrogate complex biological information. This approach is expected to reveal further unique disease insights that may lead to additional drug discovery programmes beyond those identified by C4XD to date.
Terms of the agreement are undisclosed.
Dr Craig Fox, CSO of C4X Discovery, said: "This collaboration not only demonstrates the potential of C4XD's drug discovery technologies but also highlights our desire to maximise the value from our novel genetic analysis by accessing complementary and synergistic proprietary technologies. This strategy will most effectively support our pursuit of licensable pre-clinical drug assets, such as the Orexin-1 receptor antagonist recently licensed to Indivior for up to $294m. We look forward to working with e-Therapeutics and to a successful outcome."
--ENDS-
For further information, please contact:
C4X Discovery Holdings plc
Clive Dix, Chief Executive Officer 07801 865 803
Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited (NOMAD and Broker) 020 7886 2500
Freddy Crossley, Emma Earl (Corporate Finance)
Consilium Strategic Communications
Mary-Jane Elliott, Chris Gardner, Matthew Neal 0203 709 5700
About C4X Discovery
C4X Discovery aims to become the world's most productive drug discovery engine by exploiting cutting edge technologies to design and create best-in-class small-molecule candidates targeting a range of high value therapeutic areas. The company's goal is to drive returns through early-stage revenue-generating deals with the pharmaceutical industry.
C4X Discovery has a state-of-the-art suite of proprietary technologies across the drug discovery process. The company's innovative DNA-based target identification platform (Taxonomy3®) utilises human genetic datasets to identify novel patient-specific targets leading to greater discovery productivity and increased probability of clinical success. This is complemented by C4XD's novel drug design platform which comprises two innovative chemistry technologies, Conformetrix and Molplex, that combine 4D molecular shape analyses (based on experimental data) with best-in-class computational chemistry. This provides new and unprecedented insight into the behaviour of drug molecules, enabling the production of potent selective compounds faster and more cost effectively than the industry standard.
C4X Discovery is advancing its in-house pipeline in inflammation, neurodegeneration, immuno-oncology, addiction, and diabetes with a number of new drug candidates identified and further progress made towards the pre-clinical licensing discussions. In selecting new targets C4X Discovery will focus on the high-value disease areas and will continue to maximise value from opportunistic areas, for example, immuno-oncology, addiction, and diabetes.
The Company was founded as a spin-out from the University of Manchester. It has a highly experienced management team and Board who have delivered significant value creation within the healthcare sector historically and have enabled C4XD to reach multiple value inflexion points since IPO. For additional information please go to: www.c4xdiscovery.com
About e-Therapeutics plc
e-Therapeutics plc is an Oxford-based company with a unique and powerful computer-based drug discovery platform and specialised approach to network biology.
Its novel methodology and discovery engine allow the Company to discover new and better drugs in a more efficient and effective way.
For more information about e-Therapeutics, please visit www.etherapeutics.co.uk