Date: 2014-01-07
Type of information: R&D agreement
Compound: drug targets
Company: Horizon Discovery (UK) AstraZeneca (UK)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: R&D
collaboration
licensing
Action mechanism:
Disease:
Details: * On January 7, 2014, Horizon Discovery and AstraZeneca have entered into a research, collaboration and license agreement to explore a range of oncology-relevant genotypes with the aim of identifying and validating a number of novel drug targets. This deal is the second collaboration between AstraZeneca and Horizon, and follows the announcement in April 2013 of an oncology discovery program to explore Horizon’s first-in-class kinase target program, HD-001.
Under the terms of the agreement a defined set of genotypes will be queried by Horizon for synthetic lethality. Horizon will carry out in vitro screening activities using its proprietary siRNA Platform. RNAi hits resulting from this first stage will then be validated by Horizon, through techniques including pathway analysis, confirmation of activity in endogenously mutant vs. wild type cell lines (X-MAN™), functional assays, or gene knock-in/knockout assays. AstraZeneca may exercise exclusivity over any validated targets.
Synthetic lethality occurs where the combination of mutations in two or more genes leads to cell death, but a mutation in just one of those genes does not. Synthetic lethal screens have demonstrated great potential in oncology, as these pairs of mutations could be used to selectively kill cancer cells, but leave normal cells relatively unharmed.
Financial terms: Under the terms of the agreement, Horizon will receive an undisclosed upfront payment, and is eligible for subsequent payments of up to $88 million in milestones if compounds are developed by AstraZeneca against an undisclosed number of targets identified through the research collaboration.
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