Cyclenium, Astellas Pharma enter into drug discovery collaboration

The deal will use Cyclenium’s Quest Library of next generation synthetic small-molecule macrocycles and associated optimization expertise to discover clinical candidates effective against multiple pharmacological targets selected by Astellas in their therapeutic focus areas.

Under the deal, Cyclenium will be responsible for all medicinal chemistry efforts from hit validation to pre-clinical candidate selection, while Astellas will use its internal resources for the characterization of biological and pharmacological properties of the new macrocyclic compounds.

Astellas will also be responsible for preclinical and clinical development of the resulting drug candidates.

Moreover, Cyclenium will be eligible to receive an upfront payment and research funding from Astellas.

Cyclenium president and CEO Helmut Thomas said: "We are confident that our CMRT Technology and proven success in the macrocycle area combined with the excellent research team at Astellas will provide new insight into the modulation of their difficult targets and enable the discovery of novel macrocyclic therapeutic agents."

Astellas Medicinal Chemistry Research Labs vice-president Toshihiro Watanabe said: "Cyclenium’s CMRT Technology on macrocycles offers a new approach towards our challenging pharmacological targets, and we hope that our collaboration will bring patients innovative and highly beneficial drugs."

Cyclenium’s next generation CMRT drug discovery technology addresses the shortcomings of earlier efforts in this increasingly important domain.